Chapter 1

The team moved silently through the night, each member wearing all black, their vision enhanced so they could see in complete darkness. Their communications taking place on a secure link in their heads so that they made no sound. The team leader taking point as they moved to the outskirts of the small village.

// "Remember team non-lethal, we are here only on a search and rescue."

Each member of the 5 man team checked their weapons, each held a magnetic accelerated dart rifle, M.A.D.-R for short, the rifle fired silently a dart tipped with a compound to knock out or kill its target, they lowered the velocity of the darts to subsonic, as anything higher could cause the dart to enter their targets and possibly kill.

// "Intelligence states that the targets are being held in the center of the village, guards should only have stabbing spears, this village is not one of our teaching community, they should not have access to higher tech"

The group of five split up, each one silently entering a tent on the outskirts, darting the occupants to keep them asleep. The plan was to enter as many tents subduing the villagers and then making the move to rescue the targets.

// "Team leader status up date."

// "So far we have not been detected, horses are on standby though and will come for fast evac if needed."

The team had worked their way to each tent, knocking out the villagers as they went. The team leader signaled for the team to assemble outside the tent with the hostages, they quickly took out the guards, entering the tent to find 6 students all huddled together. Two of the team members went about checking the students cutting them free, the student ranged in ages from 6-9 years, the team motioned to them to be silent.

// "No sign of the teacher, you and you, follow me, we left the shamans tent for last."

The team leader motioned for two of the team to follow her, they walked past the fire in the center of the village to the largest tent, inside they found 3 naked men, passed out, the whole tent smelled of alcohol, in the middle of the sleeping furs they found the teacher, she was naked and bleeding from every orifice, the team leader surveyed the scene, the teacher had been raped to death. She motioned for the two members of the team to wait outside, she handed one of the members her rifle.

// "Base location is secured, the teacher has been killed, I am going to stay until the village wakes up, I need to make an example here"

// "Negative team lead, your orders are to secure the students and leave the village"

The team leader signaled for the horses, telling her team to get the children out of here, she stood in the tent, looking on in disgust, she wrapped up the teacher in one of the sleeping furs, she carried the body to one of the members of her team outside.

// "Get the children out of here, I am staying till mourning"

The team member nodded as the horses arrived, controlled by a neural interface, the horses would follow orders religiously, the team leader watched as the children where loaded up and the members of her team took them off to safety.

// "Team leader what are you doing, your orders are to return to base"

// "Base tell the boss that I need to make an example here, they can't be allowed to take our people"

With that she cut communications with base, turned and walked back into the Shamans tent, she walked up to the nearest drunk and kicked him in his side, he rolled over shouting in alarm, the two other drunks stood up a bit unsteady, they looked around spotting the team leader, what appeared to be a 14 year old girl with a slight build, they looked around for the teacher.

"Little one what have you done with our toy?"

The other two started laughing.

"Perhaps she wanted to take her place?"

Two of the men approached her from each side, they each grabbed an arm.

"No fight in you? Perhaps you do want to be our toy!"

She waited until the third man approached her from the front, she quickly kicked up taking the man in the face, she then pulled the two men to her side together, slamming them into each other, she moved forward, punching the first man as he began to stand. She spun around as the other two man approached her back, taking them in a round house kick. She spent the next several minutes beating the men until they stopped getting up. The oldest man groaned on the floor, looking up at the young girl.

"What kind of demon are you?"

The girl smiled down at him.

"The kind that is sent when you ignore our warnings"

In the mourning the town awoke to find the head man, his son and the shaman tied in front of the fire, with a young girl standing behind them, she amplified her voice.

"We came in peace to your village, we offered education to your young, and we offered you the means to better care for your people."

The people started to gather around the fire, some with spears.

"We told you we would not interfere in the running of your village and we told you our friendship would mean prosperity for your people"

Two of the men rushed forward to stab the young woman, she reached out and grabbed the spear tips in each hand, she broke the flint from the two spears and crushed the flint to powder, she gave each man a glare as they retreated back among the crowd.

"All we asked is that you cease human sacrifice to your gods, you refused, so we warned you that we would not tolerate you taking people from other villages to be sacrificed!"

She went behind the three tied men and kicked them so they lay on the floor.

"In response you attacked a group of our children, these three men raped and murdered their teacher, not only did you ignore our warnings, but you purposely sought out members of our school to sacrifice, this we can not abide."

The young woman held out her hand, exposing a port on her palm, she blasted the fire, causing the flames to grow and re-ignite, she went to each man, picking them up, she threw each one into the fire, their screams filled the village and many villagers looked on in horror, whispering about the young demon girl.

"I will restate this one more time, You are free to send your youth to our village to be taught and educated, if you cease human sacrifice, if you like view these three men's death as the last your gods will ever get. If you ever take another member of any other village for your sick beliefs I will personally come to you in your sleep and burn you alive!"

The young women stared at the villagers, she heard the two horses fast approaching. She looked over to see who it was, though she had an idea. The tall blond haired woman rode in to the village with a horse trailing her, to the young woman's surprise she did not look angry. She looked around the village.

"I hope this is the last time I ever see any of you" the girl said.

The woman rode right up to her, she surveyed the scene, she looked to the young woman, she motioned to the other horse, the young woman walked to it, mounting the horse, the pair rode out of the village, and the older woman looked at the younger one.

"I came as soon as you cut communications"

The young woman nodded.

"I passed your team on the way, I saw the teacher."

The young woman remained silent.

"Shanor, I am not mad, I probably would have done the same thing once the team got back, although I would have been more diplomatic about it"

Shanor shook her head.

"Laura there is a place for diplomacy, that village did not deserve it."

Laura shook her head.

"Shanor, I would of handled it, I would of arrested them and held a trial back home, we need allies not enemies, now do you think any of their children will ever come to learn from us."

Shanor shook her head.

"We don't need savages like that at our school"

Laura frowned.

"Shanor 89 years ago you would have been one of those savages"

Shanor growled

"Our village never did anything like that Laura, these homo sapiens are more violent then the we where"

Laura sighed.

"They are more aggressive, that is for sure, but in my world they became the dominate race, the statistics for the birth rates of your people are falling, we need them to intermingle Shanor, you know all this"

Shanor mumbled.

"Ben would agree with me"

Laura laughed.

"Yeah my husband is a warrior as you are, but I know your husband would agree with me"

Shanor stuck her tongue out at Laura, they both laughed for a bit and kept on riding in silence for awhile, Shanor broke the silence.

"You know the teacher was Ogna's great granddaughter."

Laura nodded.

"I know, I know, and that's why I said I would of probably done the same as you."

They both rode along in silence, Shanor watching the road as they went, their horses where enhanced with nanites, they could ride for days without eating or sleeping. They were considerably faster than they could run.

"How are the bio experiments going?"

Laura glanced over at Shanor.

"Stephanie is confident we can began major testing in the next 6 months, she keeps asking me to allow her to do the same upgrades as me"

Shanor nodded, she had discussed it with Stephanie.

"I don't see why you won't do it, you know I think of you and her as my aunts."

Laura nodded.

"I know Shanor, I know, I honestly can't say why I am hesitant to do it, she would have to use the DNA in her Golem, so it's not like I can claim I don't want her having my own reproductive system or anything."

Shanor shook her head.

"You know she thinks it's because you don't view her as real"

Laura shook her head.

"That's not it, you guys are like my children, I know I didn't make her, another me did, but it's a big responsibility, I just, I don't know, we both take our work so seriously, I don't think I am ready for it, let alone her."

Shanor watched looking at the horizon.

"Still Laura, it's her choice to make not yours, you two are working so hard to give Entoch a more human body so we can one day make the same choice, is it any wonder when we can give her the same ability right now that she would be curious about it?"

Laura sighed.

"Things used to be so much easier when we were just trying to survive the week, let alone start a new civilization"

Shanor laughed.

"This was all your idea"

Laura nodded.

Shanor spurned on her horse, looking back at Laura.

"Race you!"

Laura shook her head, the events of the previous day still fresh in her head, she blamed herself, she had not thought to send guards with the school groups, hell it was her idea not to inject any of the villagers with nanites until they reached the age of 21. They would of known the instant the group on the field trip had been abducted. She watched Shanor take off on her horse, she yelled he-yah sending her horse to catch up.

They reached one of the trade roads to their village, the road system was a fairly new invention, it had been Entoch idea to build the roads using lasers to melt the rock with a mixture of sap, from a group of trees they had discovered to have rubber like properties. The rocks had been melted into 12 by 8 ft sections It had taken the five of them several weeks to do the basic roads to the village. Stephanie had designed a machine to lay the roads for them after it was decided it was taking too much time doing it by hand.