Shades of Earth by Beth Revis
Amy and Elder are moments away from hitting the big red button that will take their shuttle down to Centauri-Earth. Are we ready for this? Elder presses the button for automated landing. It’s a rough flight down, especially for those who were unable to safely strap in. As they hit the atmosphere it’s like the shuttle is trying to shake them out, and the ground is coming towards them fast when manual control turns on. Between them, Amy and Elder are able to land in one piece. As they catch their breath, Elder is sure something hit the craft.
There is chaos in the main hold where the rest of the people that chose to leave Godspeed were traveling. There are injuries all over, scared and shaken people, and at least one person died because their tether slipped and choked them. In the middle, ignoring it all, is Amy, more concerned with unfreezing her parents. More than 100 units are being unfrozen. Finally, Amy snaps out of watching her parents slow defrost and Kit shows her how to triage the injured.
There’s a loud shrieking cry from outside the shuttle that Elder needs to investigate. Amy passes him a gun, though begs him to wait for her father. Elder knows it’s his job as leader to his people. He’s scared, very scared, but overrides the door lock anyway. It's so different outside! The two suns are so bright, there are no walls, he is surrounded by trees and the air feels different. Then he hears the shrieking cry again and a monstrous pterodactyl-like creature lands close by. Before Elder can react, the creature rushes him. As the creature strikes Elder, a shot whizzes by, scaring it off. It's Amy. Amy is able to get Elder back inside and checks his wounds before she tells everyone he’s ok. That’s when Amy hears someone say her name. Her father and her mother are behind her. And they have no idea she's been awake for 3 months, and what happened on Godspeed.
Amy’s father’s military training kicks in and he starts snapping orders and trying to assess the situation even though Amy tries to explain and keeps trying to explain, but he ignores her. This scares the Shipborn, and is made worse by his handling of the dead, and that they look, talk and dress differently. When they head to the armory, Amy knows it’s going to get worse. Elder steps into the room and Amy introduces him to her father, Colonel Robert Martin. Colonel Martin is skeptical of Elder, after all he’s just a kid, but he’s a kid with all the room codes and demands their respect. Elder lets him and his second arm themselves.
Elder can’t see Amy in her father, but he does see similarities to Eldest which makes him wary. Colonel Martin says they need one leader between the two peoples and that he should be the one to take command. Elder rejects this, saying he is willing to work with the Colonel for everyone’s wellbeing and support his orders so long as they are not at the detriment of his own. The Colonel is somewhat condescending toward Elder, refusing to listen to the situation, and not even flinching when Elder says it’s been several generations, several centuries since they’ve had contact with Sol-Earth. Elder lets them access the computer system and, with a 10 digit military code, they receive comms from Earth.
The comms tell them that there have been advances in technology since the ship left, there should be a space station in orbit and when the landing was registered, an automated shuttle with supplies was sent. The voice starts to tell them of the dangers on the planet but cuts out as the creature attacks again. Colonel Martin and his executive officer, Emma, take a small team out to the planet, ostensibly to find a probe to establish communication with Earth, but they might go and shoot some indigenous creatures too. Elder wants to go but the Colonel tells him to look after his people, Amy wants to go but she would get in the way so she stomps off like a petulant child to hide in the bio-lab where Orion is slowly defrosting.
One of the Earthborn, Juliana Robertson, is whaling, she just found out her husband was murdered. She wants to know which freak did it and as the Shipborn turn to Elder, she misinterprets the look for accusation, lunging at him and throwing a punch. The situation descends into chaos and no one is listening to Elder as he stands on a table for attention. It doesn’t calm down until Colonel Martin comes back. Finally, he wants to talk to Amy.
Amy tries to explain but her dad seems a little hostile and accuses her of sounding like “them." Amy tells him the best thing he could do is let everyone go outside and see the planet to give them something to fight for, and he actually listens to this advice. When Amy and Elder get the opportunity to look around with a military guard, Amy is astounded by the beauty of the planet, Elder looks around as if trying to see the walls. At the tree line, Elder points out an animal footprint with what looks like a razor claw. Unfortunately it is destroyed by one of the military people before they can report it to the biologists. As they walk back to the shuttle, they notice two black marks on the side of the ship. As they inspect, a young officer, Chris, flirting with Amy, ushers them back inside.
As the Shipborn and the Earthborn settle down for the night, the disparity between them becomes more evident. While the Shipborn sleep against walls or each other, the Earthborn have comfortable sleeping bags. Amy’s mother, Maria, tells her, with disdain in her voice, they should have been better prepared; they had centuries to do so.
An alarm blares throughout the shuttle waking everyone up. There is something wrong with the computer sensors and everyone has to evacuate in 15 minutes or risk being trapped inside the shuttle. Some of the Shipborn aren’t leaving, they’re so scared, and it isn’t until Amy uses Phydus patches Kit has that she can get them out. Amy is ordered by her father to stay with Chris because he doesn’t trust the Shipborn. Elder is trying to look after his people but is also watching Amy and Chris flirting. It’s awkward. Overhead, one of the huge reptilian birds glides past but moves on.
As they find a water source, the sky grows darker with an approaching storm. The thunder and lightning scares the Shipborn. They need shelter. Someone notices ruins across the lake, which could mean sentient life on the planet, but Elder’s immediate concern is getting his people safe before they truly start panicking. The Earthborns just don’t understand the reaction of the Shipborn. As everyone races to the shelter of the ruins, which just so happen to be the perfect size for humans, Amy revels in the rain, dancing and twirling and kissing Elder. They go up to the second story away from everyone else where they find little tick-like bugs and flowers freshly opened from what seems to be Spanish moss. Suddenly Amy passes out. It's not Spanish moss.
Elder picks Amy up and runs for medical help. They find Earthborn medics and her father. As they look Amy over, Colonel Martin rages at Elder. This is is doing, he did this, if anything happens to Amy, it’s Elder's fault, he can’t keep anyone safe. Amy finally wakes after 24 hours, looks around and doesn’t see Elder. The flowers after it’s rained seem to emit a neurotoxin that traps the bugs, and smelling the flower did the same thing to Amy. While Amy was unconscious, one of the Shipborn was discovered to be missing, as well as one of the Doctors from Earth. As Amy is talking to her father about the communication link to Earth, which isn’t working, Emma radios that she found the Shipborn and the Earthborn tracker sent to find her. Both are dead.
Amy finds Elder and tells him what has happened. Elder is frustrated that no one knew exactly what they had to deal with down here when they realize someone did. Orion. And he’s been defrosting with no one to reset his timer. They both take off at a run for the shuttle. As they arrive, Amy asks Elder why he wasn’t there when she woke. He was, hiding under the window where she slept. Elder only apologized. They managed to get into the shuttle and find Orion, covered in cryo goo and weak, blind and dying since they didn’t prepare him before being frozen. Before Orion dies, he gives them a clue about the creatures on the planet. He calls Elder The Little Prince, like the book from his clues, and Amy pulls it out from a hidden crevice. Ta-da! They look at the underlined text, but the clue is in an illustration, who are the real monsters?
Before Amy and Elder leave the shuttle, Elder tells Amy that her parents forced him away. Amy realizes she doesn’t resent him for not being there, but she wanted him to be there. Chris comes out of the trees then tells them to get back to the ruins for a colony wide announcement. Rather than offering comfort, the Colonel’s speech makes everyone terrified because the fear of the unknown is the greatest source of fear there is. Elder grows uneasy with the Colonel’s words: soldiers or slaves.
As Elder gets to work giving out food rations and digging holes for the latrines, Amy wants to look at The Little Prince for more clues. Elder doesn’t have time and Amy stomps off. Suddenly, as Elder’s pickaxe hits the ground, it gives way and they fall into what looks like a manmade tunnel. The tunnel walls are smooth. Feeling around the floor, Elder finds something, a scale? With the area closed while the military investigates, Elder starts helping to lay the pipe, when he tries to go to the lake however, one of the Colonel’s men stops him, saying it’s forbidden. What is the Colonel trying to hide?
Amy has been hiding away studying The Little Prince when her mother asks her to help in the lab. One of the scientists asks about the Phydus pump, but Amy only tells them it distributed bad drugs to the populace before Elder broke it and won’t say anything more. Chris is there and staring at the Phydus pump. Later, Amy, with her mother and Chris, go out looking for samples. In the foliage they hear something, a ripping, slurping, sound. They see the missing doctor and the Ptero creature eating him. The doctor is still alive. Chris and Amy start to shoot.
Elder is very suspicious and wants to find out what is going on so starts investigating the area. He’s particularly interested in the ruins, obviously man made, but by who for whom? Hiking up a trail, Elder can see the expanse of the lake, the fish swimming in it, trying to understand what the Colonel is trying to hide. It’s then Elder realizes it’s not the lake the Colonel is hiding, it’s what is behind it. The probe.
The bodies of the doctor and Ptero are taken back to the lab and Amy's mom is preparing to examine and autopsy them. The doctor was alive and still moving while he was being eaten, but didn’t react at all to the… biting and chewing. When Maria pulls the reading from the first test, it shows the doctor was recently injected with Earth made genetic modification.
After curfew that night Elder sneaks to Amy’s tent. He’s going to investigate the probe if she wants to come. Heck yeah! The area around the probe is flat and asphalt. There seems to be a compound built over it. There’s something metal embedded in the asphalt, markings and what looks like a structure underneath. It’s a runway. And it looks like it was recently used. Going into the structure, Amy and Elder find a locked door with a thumb scanner, Amy tries it and it lets her in, registering her a “human.” Inside they find the same symbol of the FRX as on Godspeed and a plaque memorializing those lost on Godspeed. Turns out, Elder and this group weren’t the first to colonize Centauri-Earth. These ruins were made by the ones who came before. But where are they now? Taking a look at the computer system, Elder is able to play the same message he heard on the shuttle when they arrived. Amy thinks it’s Earth, but then they both realize it is a recording, and there will be no help coming.
There are more recordings that don’t make sense, until they start playing them. They are video feeds from various locations in Godspeed. The situation looks dire, people rushing about in a desperate hurry or stopped like they’ve given up. It looks like the alarms are blaring. The engine, which no one looked at after the explosion on the bridge, must be finally giving up. It was old before, but now… Elder doesn’t want to see it. The video flicks to the hospital and the Plague Eldest’s statue when Amy realizes the last clue from The Little Prince was about the Plague Eldest's robe. Bartie comes into view then, stops and stares at the statue. He pulls something out of his pocket, a little black square.
As they are heading back to the colony, Emma catches them, realizes they weren’t out snogging and tries to warn Amy and Elder but the Colonel comes stomping by. As they head back in, the Colonel’s prejudice against the Shipborn comes rearing out. Amy confronts him about the “choice” he gave her and his explanation is lacking and his apology is hollow. She loves her father, but she's just not sure she can trust him.
The next morning Amy wakes Elder up in a panic. Kit has gone missing. While the Colonel is unconcerned, Elder is very worried. Within an hour he has one hundred volunteers armed with farm tools and sharpened sticks. The sight worries the Colonel. One of the pregnant Shipborn saw Kit during the night and points to the guard who was on duty, Chris, and no, he didn’t make sure Kit got back to her tent safely. As the search parties leave, and forbidden to go, Emma sneaks to Amy and gives her a glass cube saying she and Elder aren’t military so they don’t have to follow the orders and blindly accept everything. Amy hides the cube in her sleeping bag.
Maria runs further tests on the Ptero’s blood and finds more Earth made genetic modification bio markers in it. What is going on? After a while Elder comes into the lab. Maria wants to ask him the species of the fetuses in the tube in the lab. Elder tells them they’re human but they can be disposed of, nothing specific. As they are drained out, Chris gets a comm. Kit’s body has been found.
Kit’s body is brought straight to the lab and it’s clearly not an animal that killed her, the wounds look like they’ve come from exploding rounds. Maria pulls shards of what looks like glass from the wounds. Elder checks Kit’s lab coat and finds different med patches, but not the green Phydus patches. After a long time helping her mom try and figure out what happened to Kit, Amy returns to her tent. She drops the glass cube Emma gave her and it glows brightly. What is this? Amy sneaks out with the cube wrapped up to show Elder. They work out that it must be some kind of solar charge light, there are square holes under every window in the ruins - charge all day to give light off at night. It could be the same thing charging the compound.
Amy and Elder head to the shuttle lab to test the bodies for Phydus. The blood samples from those who have died on the planet all show Phydus to varying degrees except Kit, who had none. But how? Phydus was developed on Godspeed, wasn’t it? As they head back to the ruins, they run into Chris again. Amy sends Elder back to his tent and Chris returns Amy to hers. Chris is edgy and tries to tell Amy something, which she assumes is about the probe and so she thanks him for his trust.
The next day Elder heads to the shuttle intent on checking the stocks of Kit’s medical supplies. Once on board, Elder hears shouting. Amy and her father are fighting and next to them is Emma’s body. The Colonel calls Amy hysterical and once again dismisses her and any explanation or help she may provide. Amy tells him there are aliens on the planet and the Colonel insists they don’t need to know. Elder even tells him they know about the bio-lock at the compound, but still the Colonel insists he knows nothing. When the Colonel leaves, Elder follows and resignedly the Colonel takes him to the compound. Chris is stationed there and gives Elder a weary look as they go inside.
Inside the Colonel tells Elder what he knows, that there was a colony before them who built the ruins and the compound, and that they are all dead. Chris found recordings and shows Elder a video. Glass made on the planet stores solar energy, and these were manufactured and sent back to Earth via a space station in orbit. Chris was able to explain that through tesseracts and wormholes, travel between the planets is much shorter now and they should be able to receive help. Then they can wage war on the alien presence on the planet.
In the lab, test results show Emma had Phydus in her too. Where is it coming from? Later in the day, Elder comes to the shuttle and he and Amy talk about what they have found out. Amy has found out that the Pteros have a mix of DNA from Sol-Earth, Centauri-Earth and gen-mod material. While Elder is convinced the Colonel is just like Eldest, Amy insists her father is fairer. She is scared of the planet having Phydus and wishes they’d stayed on Godspeed. Elder is glad they came to the planet regardless of the lies, secrets, uncertainty and death. The conversation eventually ends with Amy and Elder having sex.
Amy ducks out a short time later, it wouldn’t do for her parents to know what she’s been up to, and she bumps into Chris who is on guard. They walk to the lab so Amy can run some more tests. They talk about the planet, but Amy becomes distracted and falls over a tree root. Chris catches her with what seems like superspeed. Chris then encourages Amy to listen to the planet, and to Amy, it sounds like Earth. Chris obviously reads Amy’s signals wrong now and kisses her. This is super awkward considering what she was just doing with Elder and Amy pushes him away. It seems, despite Amy and Elder not exactly being secretive about their attraction, Chris didn’t realize they were a thing. Later as Elder eavesdrops on Amy’s parents who are looking at the scale he found which is now glowing, Elder spots Amy and Chris returning and sees Chris attempt another kiss which Amy rebuffs.
The next morning as the colony is waking, there is a rumble and exploding sound. As Elder runs with the Colonel and other military personnel, he sees the shuttle ripped to pieces and with it the food stores, the embryos of the Earth animals, the lab, and Harley’s last painting - his last tie to Godspeed. He finds a glass orb that looks similar to the cube Amy had. When the Colonel shoots it, a 2 foot crater is left. Elder turns to the Colonel and tells him that this proves it’s the aliens trying to kill them. At the compound, the Colonel explains everything to Elder, Amy and Maria, and later to all the colonists. They aren’t the first colonists to land from Earth. The people who built the ruins and compound were and they were wiped out by the native population. He’s made contact with Earth and they are sending aid and should reach the space station in orbit in five days. Those who are weak, injured or sick will be sent up to the space station where there are provisions that will last them until they can return to Earth. He is also being given access to a weapon that will help eradicate the threat. This is all received with mixed reactions.
It takes hours and lots of arguments for people to be loaded into the auto shuttle for transport to the space station. With the last two tubes, the Colonel turns to his wife and daughter. Elder is standing still watching Amy. He won’t leave and he doesn’t want her to leave. He feels helpless. Amy steps forward, says her goodbyes to her mom and turns to her dad, despite his warnings and says she is staying. She isn’t going to run. The Colonel is pissed as he turns to the computer and starts the launch sequence. From inside Maria’s box a red light can be seen flashing and the people start banging and thrashing inside their boxes. The boxes whoosh open and Amy breathes in some of the air that was released. Everything slows down and she feels numb. Everyone in the boxes is dead. It wasn’t oxygen being pumped into the boxes, but a strong concentration of Phydus.
In the ensuing chaos, Elder is able to use a voice amplifier to get everyone back to the ruins, the only place of potential safety. Amy is starting to come round from the Phydus dose, and she’s broken from seeing her mom’s death. As of now, the Colonel’s priority is getting the big gun on the space station ready to wipe out the aliens as the colonists wait for Earth’s back up. The Colonel turns to Chris and asks him if there is anything else he needs to know. Elder notices this exchange and asks the Colonel if there is anything else he is hiding, the Colonel says Elder knows everything he knows.
Elder has a plan. With Chris and Amy’s help he is going to reprogram the autoshuttle to go to Godspeed, find Orion’s last clue and bring the rest of his people down to the planet. He’ll release the bodies of the fallen to the stars. Amy and Chris are both enthusiastic for this, if it saves the colonists, brings help from Godspeed and stops the Colonel from killing the alien species. Chris is able to reprogram the autoshuttle based on the camera footage frequently coming from Godspeed, and Elder flies off. This happens just as the Colonel and his military storm the compound, initially thinking they are the alien threat and then demanding to know what has happened. The Colonel thinks they are foolish but Amy sees that her father is out for revenge which is polluting his opinion and the best course of action for the colony.
Elder ascends quicker than he expected, and as he rises, he releases the bodies of the 499 Phydus victims to the stars. As he draws closer to Godspeed, he touches his wicomm and instructs it to connect to Bartie. Bartie answers, and offers to throw a party if Elder can really come back up to Godspeed. Elder tells him to start baking a cake. Elder manages to get the shuttle connector to attach to Godspeed using kamikaze tactics in the airless void of space without a spacesuit that Amy is best not informed of.
On Centauri-Earth, Amy has given her father and Chris the idea of using the purple flowers against the aliens should they attack the colony, though the Colonel dismisses Amy’s suggests he actually considers Chris’s if they used the flowers Phydus capabilities as a smoke. The remaining scientists aren’t able to say if the plan will work, but it’s worth a try. They dig trenches and fill them with the purple flowers, packing anything flammable with them. It takes hours, but they have some form of protection constructed. That night, they are attacked.
The aliens are silent, camouflaged green and wearing scale armor. Amy sees the fuse being lit for the trenches and the aliens walk through the smoke unaffected. FREX! Sneaking out, Amy makes her way to the compound, intent on seeing if Elder has been able to send a message back to them with the key to survival. On Godspeed, Elder is unconscious but alive. Bartie and Doc were able to pull him inside and give him oxygen. The tether is, amazingly, secure. Bartie starts asking a million questions, but Elder doesn’t answer them yet, only telling him that he can bring their people to the planet but the threat is real and the key to surviving it may be on the statue of the Plague Eldest.
Amy is making her way through the foliage heading to the compound when she is grabbed by Chris. Together, they run for it, making it inside as explosions pepper the sky. Chris starts trying to open comms to Godspeed. On Godspeed, Elder and Bartie topple the statue but they need to break it apart so they stuff the statue into a grav tube, send it up then turn the tube off. SMASH! Inside is a small box, the original copies of recordings by the Plague Eldest.
Eventually Amy and Chris are able to connect to Elder. They choose not to tell Elder what is happening since he can’t do anything to help and he’s busy bringing down the rest of the people from Godspeed. Elder however has videos for them to watch. They aren’t going to be happy.
The Plague Eldest, the last Captain of Godspeed, Albert Davis, fills the screen. He tells whoever is listening that they aren’t the first colonists to Centauri-Earth. Twenty years before Godspeed was due to land, Earth sent probes and found valuable resources; they got impatient and colonized it already, now they don’t know what to do with them. The camera cuts to a sharply dressed woman, an FRX representative, who instructs it to be turned off. When the recording starts again, Captain Davis is in a conference room with the woman, she doesn’t realize she is being recorded. The woman says the original colony was… difficult and they have begun limiting supplies of the solar glass. The FRX do not expect the people on Godspeed to help produce weapons, just energy cubes. To help with the solar radiation sickness they will suffer on the planet, they’ve kindly brought a gen modification vaccine that will ensure they and their future generations will be safe.
In the lab on Godspeed, the scientists tell Captain Davis that the vaccine is gen mod mixed with another drug they’ve named Phydus. It turns them into obedient dogs. Sitting in the lab is a young girl, the scientist's test subject and Captain Davis’ daughter. So far they can’t reverse the effects. They think the first colony must have already been given the drug. A woman dressed in red says the people on Godspeed have already voted to land the ship. They will do so even if they need to fight the FRX, or the Captain. Davis says, “you will not.” He uses a modified Phydus to keep everyone from fighting and the rebellion subdued. Before the feed cuts out, Captain Davis's daughter fills the screen. She has startling blue eyes and strange irises. Amy has seen those before. On Chris. Who has a gun leveled at her head.
Back up on Godspeed, Elder and Bartie are helping with the preparations to leave. Elder checks the playback sent to Amy and notices it has stopped. Through the comms he hears Amy and Chris’s voices. Chris has the same strange iris as Captain Davis’s daughter because he is a descendant of the first colony. When the Colonel came to inspect the probe the first time he left with nine and came back with ten. No one questioned it. He explains he has Phydus in his DNA but his adrenal gland has mutated so he isn’t the mindless slave Earth wanted to make. Others like him mutated in the same way, able to resist Phydus. They call them Rogue Hybrids. The monsters aren’t monsters, they’re people, modified to be stronger, faster and able to see at night, but according to Earth, they don’t count as people.
The Colonel knew Chris wasn’t a frozen either, he thought he was a survivor of the original colony and Chris helped make sure he thought aliens were the real threat but the Colonel is persistent. The weapon on the space station will kill all the mutated humans as it will attack at the genetic level. Amy wants to know why kill them? Collateral damage, but they’re all part of the problem, it’s us or them. Elder has been listening to all this, he looks in the box from the statue and sees a formula for inhibitors meds. They might yet stand a chance. As Amy begs for her life, Elder shouts “wait!”
Elder tells them he has the formula for the inhibitor meds, they can cure the first colonists. Just then the Colonel comes rushing in, he’s ready to set off the weapon when Chris shows him the first colonists, so he can put faces to the genocide he is about to commit. This doesn’t affect the Colonel at all, he is so bent on vengeance and starts arming the weapon.
There is a fight for the weapons and three rogue hybrids enter the control room clad in the scale armor. They declare this ends now and demand their surrender and that Earth stand down. The Colonel sits down, opens comms to Earth and tells them the rogues have taken over and to arm the biological weapon. He’s halfway through giving his military authorization code when the Colonel and rogue leader start scrapping. The voice on the end of the Earth comm states it needs the full code before it will eliminate its slave force. While the Colonel is fighting the third rogue steps forward, grabs Amy and injects an icy hot liquid. They’ve genetically modified her, she is no longer human. The Colonel lunges for Chris and suddenly a gunshot goes off, Amy’s dad falls to the floor in front of her.
Elder can’t reestablish communication, he only knows Amy is in trouble. The people of Godspeed need to leave now. Elder quickly shows Bartie how to operate the shuttle and runs to the emergency pod for one. He’ll get to the space station and set off the weapon if it saves Amy. Once inside he opens comms again and hears Amy, and finds out she has been injected and the Colonel is dead. Elder tells them Bartie and the shuttle are coming, they are not to be hurt. He will go to the space station and disable the weapon, they can have the inhibitor formula if they guarantee their safety. The rogue leader demands the space station be destroyed, but Elder doesn’t have any weapons. Elder agrees anyway.
Amy resists Chris’s hold with her new added strength, she can see so much more, hear so much better, smell everything. Elder tells Amy he is going to crash Godspeed into the space station and then, sorry before cutting the comms. Elder goes very slowly and pushes Godspeed forward. As warnings about external damage flash, Elder thinks this is going to get a lot worse and sends a silent goodbye to Amy.
Amy runs outside and looks up into the sky. She can see so many more stars now but there is only one thing she wants to see. There is a brief flash of light amongst the stars and then it’s gone. Elder is gone. He has saved them all.
Amy strides toward the rogue leader, Zane. She is not in the mood to take any shite and demands the release of her people first and foremost. They take Amy to the city and the people are empty shells, worse than the people on Godspeed. Zane suspects the drug was tested on Centauri-Earth before being used on Earth itself. They used to have FRX representatives there to supervise, eventually they would only visit sporadically until not at all and only occasionally gave orders via satellite. Everyone is a programmed drone unless they’ve mutated.
Amy leads the peace negotiations. She wants everything written down, witnessed and notarized. She insists that her colony governs themselves, and the first colonists can do the same. Trust is difficult and people are scared. In Elder’s name, people are willing to try. A few days later, Zane has come in one of his big trucks, he wants Amy to witness the first try of the inhibitor. As they head into the lab Zane has set up, Chris leans into Amy and whispers that Bartie still doesn’t trust her, looks at her like she’s a freak. Amy whirls on him which startles Bartie. Amy tells Chris that she will be accepted again, because of who she is not what she is.
In the lab, Zane gives a young man the inhibitor in a glass of water, Bartie and Amy having given them the potential idea of distribution through the water. Slowly the man breaks free of the Phydus’s control. Chris wants to show Amy something and takes her down the tunnel to a glass pen with Pteros inside. Amy’s mom was right, they had Pterodactyl DNA, the first colonists created them and Phydus helps them to control them. He explains that the doctor was taken because the rogue hybrids thought he knew about Phydus. Kit was taken because she couldn’t answer their questions and Emma knew too much about Chris. Amy tells him they should have been honest from the start and valued lives more than secrets.
Zane comes to Amy, Sol-Earth and the FRX are trying to contact them again. Amy answers the comm, angry, and tells them they have joined forces with the hybrids and have a cure for the vaccine and it’s being distributed. When they threaten to send forces, Amy welcomes them, letting them know they have a decade to create all the weapons they need and will happily blow them out of orbit. This makes Zane howl with laughter and triumph. Amy will never give up her home again.
On the computer Zane points at a blinking light, it’s a homing beacon. Amy runs with all her hybrid speed will allow toward the signal. It must be the escape rocket. When she finds the burnt wreckage there is no body inside, but then, from behind “Amy." Elder! He got knocked off course when he crashed, he didn’t know where he landed and has a broken leg and arm. As they hold each other, Elder tells Amy he will always come back to her.
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