Chapter 3: New Beginnings

The Norns awoke to a bright and sunny day. Well, as bright and sunny as it can be in space. The pink/purple norn named Galen turned in his sleep and nudged his mate, Deanna. Deanna accidentally nudged Rhiannon who then jarred Laird awake. The only Norns who woke naturally were the 4 youngsters, 2 of which, the blue pixie Saskia and the brown desert named Rufus, seemed to have aged to adolescent during the night.

Laird looked at the computer and when he noticed the Grendel trackers he blanched. Something banged on the door.

"Don't open it!" Laird screamed.

"Why?" replied Kwani who was heading for the door.

"Because the Grendels are on the other side!"

Kwani panicked and dashed away. Laird grabbed her by her long cyan hair and looked her right in her golden yellow eyes.

"Pull yourself together. Do you want to have all of our deaths on your conscience?" he said firmly.

"So what do we do?" Rhiannon asked

"Leave it to me" said Laird with a confident air.

He walked over to the main computer and tapped a few keys. The machine clicked and whirred and finally a screen full of green numbers displayed itself.

"Houston, we have a problem." said Rufus pretending to bang his head on the door

"Oh Hand, What have you done Laird?!" Galen said drumming his fingers on the table.

"I am effectively hacking. I'm trying to find the solution to our problem and...Aha! I think we have lift off!"

"Yes? howzat then?" Rowan said, genuinely interested.

"Well look!" An overjoyed Laird said waving a hand towards the screen.

Galen inspected the computer screen. "What am I looking at?"

Laird shoved the former leader's face closer to the screen "That!" he said pointing to a row of noughts.

"Ah a row of noughts. A real cause for celebration." Galen murmured sarcastically.

"Stupid sod." Laird said simply. He pressed another key and typed in the row of noughts. Another screen with 13 digits on it appeared. "1 1001 1001 1001. Hey that's binary for 1 9 9 9! Hang on a minute, 1999? Must be when the thing was built. Cool."

He typed in the 13 digits and just before he pressed ENTER, he said "Wait for it..." He touched the key lightly and all of a sudden a shocked/surprised/angry growl came from outside as a torrent of water all but washed the enemy away.

"What happened?" asked the insatiably curious Kwani.

"There's a sprinkler system in case of a fire, The Grendels obviously didn't know about it, Hell! I didn't 'til I found that code. Thing is The Great Shee didn't make a button to set them off so I had to do it manually." Laird answered

Rhiannon then stepped up to Laird and brushed a stray hair out of his face. A wide grin split Laird's face, Galen shook his head with a small smile.

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Later that spring,Saskia and Rufus got married. The 8 had already paired off, some earlier than others (Galen & Deanna), but Saskia and Rufus were the first to officially get hitched.

Galen had the resourceful Deanna. The idea of choosing different mates now that their home was gone just didn't occur the them. Laird now had the beautiful Rhiannon. Rhiannon was unsure about this set up, even after his single handed saviour act, she figured that she didn't have much of a choice but as she got to know the rugged Golden Desert, she wouldn't have swapped him for the world. Rowan,the mernorn descendent, had joined with Kwani. Even they had to admit it was an odd pairing. Rowan had a green mernorn head and body and the rest of him was striking purple Desert norn. He was very shy and retiring but he had an aura about him that made everyone want to kiss him. Kwani, cyan tinted Emerald norn with golden eyes, on the other hand, was assertive and had a curiosity that often led to restlessness. She was also pregnant!

She hadn't even known about it until her new mate had shown her how to work the monitoring equipment on the bridge. She had been shocked and a little surprised to find that she was already in her 4th term. Right now at the wedding, she knew that it could come at any moment. As if to make a point about Kwani's appalling sense of timing, her contractions started.

"Quick! Get her to the incubator!" Rowan screamed and carried his Mate-In-Labour to the nearest teleporter.

"We'll be with you soon," said Rufus as the parents to be disappeared in a flash of light.

They arrived just as the egg was going in the incubator. They waited for a few moments until the large checkerboard egg cracked. Out of it popped a little male Norn. He was completely like his mother apart from his head which was his father's. Due to his mother's pigment bleeds however his head looked like a regular Desert Norn's head.

"What shall we call him?" said Kwani.

"I have no idea." replied Rowan

"What about Maris?" suggested Rufus, holding up a book of Shee Mythology. "According to this book, the first Shee was called Maris. His mate was a Shee called Rinnah."

The parents nodded.

"Maris it is" Kwani confirmed.

"Goo" said Maris