Page 36 of Agrippa's Acceptance

“Yes, they would’ve bombed the temples long ago, but they don’t have the explosives to reach that deep.”

Still staring at her, Amelagar said, “one problem, this ship doesn’t land.”

Agrippa and Anatu exchanged a look. She took a deep breath and said, “actually it does land.”

“Say what?” Scottie said.

“I thought maybe we might need that ability and I asked LBS to try to adapt and a few days ago he confirmed to me that we could make some changes to make him capable of landing.”

Scotty snarled, “it’s a bloody ship, a piece of metal, stop talking about it as if its alive.”

The ship shuddered violently and the floor under the colonel’s boots surged and he fell to one knee. Swearing he staggered upright.

“Do not speak of Little Big Ship with disrespect. He is helping both our peoples,” Anatu snarled. She widened her eyes at them.

Anatu hastened to say. “Yes, without LBS, we cannot complete this mission. We could not have come this far without him.”

“I swear if you were not married to—”

“Do not insult my human.” Anatu’s shoulders dropped. “I miss him,” she mumbled and one of the marines groaned.

“Great, you’ve set her off again.”

The ship shuddered again and did not stop this time.

“Marine, if you ever insult our fellow marine LBS, again, you will be on guard duty for the rest of your life,” Colonel Farnham barked.

“Yes sir.”

Through all this Agrippa felt Amelagar’s gaze burning through her. Anger came off him and it amazed her that no one else seemed to notice.

“Contact your resistance.” Amelagar said and walked away without looking back.

She wanted to follow him, to explain, but she had to carry out his order first. She sent the message.

They waited three days for a reply and during that long wait, Amelagar ignored her. She tried to talk to him and he ignored her. Just like her family had ignored her after the clones took her for training. The others picked up on the way Amelagar avoided her, but no said anything.

Code scrolled over her tablet. Instructions and co-ordinates. “We made contact.” It was a relief to focus on something other than Amelagar’s anger.

Colonel Farnham frowned. “How will we land a ship in a city unobserved.”

“We will go dark and land far from the cities. The resistance will help us get to the temple. That is if we can convince them to trust us.”

“I thought giving us the passwords to get down safely meant they trusted us?” Sergeant Bjorn said.

“No. I don’t think so. They recruited me when I was a child, but I haven’t seen any of them. I don’t even know their names. They gave me this code to contact them if I found anything useful to fight the clones.”

“Colonel Farnham, you, and the other marines will stay on the ship. Your strange skins will get us all into trouble.”

The marines seemed resigned. They left the clone ship behind Tundra’s moon. The marines did not have to do much but monitor the ship and make sure they stayed in orbit with the moon between them and Tundra the whole time.

Agrippa, Anatu and Amelagar sat on the bridge of LBS. They were about to pass the planetary defence system and Agrippa barely breathed. They did not stand a chance against the firepower of the four defence platforms that orbited Tundra.

At last they reached the coordinates The Souls had sent them.

“What if it is a trap. They might think we are clones. Or the clones may have intercepted my message and its not the resistance waiting for us down there.” Nightmare scenarios flashed through her mind.

“We will deal with problems as they happen. Let’s get out and see who we are dealing with. Keep your weapons ready.”

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