The "infirmary" was large, and took up a huge amount of space inside the mountain. The floor was covered in the raised warm stones the women liked to sleep on. Should a man be bloody or damaged it was believed the stones would be a superior place to put him and his family. The

Healing devices were all set up and ready for us to use. The few men we had left here that were considered Healers were ready for anything, but nothing came.

The sound outside was distant and far away. I ended up sitting on a large warm stone waiting. There was no attack where we were. The aliens either had not noticed the rebel camps or planned to take out the compounds first.

Beyond the mountains my men were fighting for their lives. They had burst from beneath the ground when the warships approached and started to fight back. Legions of Paterian men soared through the sky intent on defending their home planet.

In my mind's eye I saw flashes of the fighting. The transports sent from the camps moved in harmony with one another. It was as though the separate Paterian families were communicating and moved as one being to fight the invaders. I mentioned it to the men around me and they bowed their heads to the Great Harmonious Spirit.

This was a fierce world. The men were trained to fight and raised to do battle. The weapons the aliens brought were quickly evaluated and strategy for defense was decided upon. The shields Rue and his Brothers had developed worked perfectly.

The aliens shot at us with some sort of beam. The thing would explode on contact with almost anything, except the shields. The men on the transports raised theirs and deflected the beams to hit harmlessly in the desert. There were very few direct hits on the compound or the village.

The weapons Rue had developed using the ore were also very effective. They couldn't seem to breach the armor on the sides of the warships without three or four direct blows, but they could down one by aiming for their engines. Once on the ground, the warships could be targeted and destroyed.

Rue had several cannons developed that could actually project the ore itself. That cannon tore open an alien ship in one hit. The men were hesitant to use this powerful tool. If they missed the ore exploded pointlessly on impact with the ground. It was wasteful. That particular weapon was preserved and used only when they were sure of a direct hit.

All in all, Rue's weapons were disastrous for the aliens. The defense had been totally unexpected and it was effective. However, that wasn't to say there wasn’t any damage on our side.

The women that owned men had been waiting above ground in the land surrounding the compounds. They didn't understand what the free men could do. Unfortunately, they put themselves between the rebel men and the aliens. Many of them were destroyed by the alien weapons before they realized that the rebels could defend themselves.

Unlike before, the ships the aliens had brought would not be bested by the women's native weapons easily. The slaving women were almost helpless before the onslaught. Had the rebels not been present, the world would have fallen within the first day cycle.

I sat in the quiet room in the camp and heard the commotion as my men did. Just like them I experienced the screaming wail of the dying women and the panic from the shopkeepers in the villages. None of it distracted my men, we had a job to do and it would be done.

The damage to the women was immense and we knew what it meant. Gunth sent out a plea. A second contingent of men was sent to the mountains. The women could fight the warships, but many were being lost in the process. We moved to defend them when it became apparent they would need us.

Night fell and the battle continued to rage. The Paterian men and women were not affected by the dark, although it perhaps made them more vicious. By the middle of the night the aliens had stayed their attack and seemed to be regrouping back above the bounds of our atmosphere.

The men on the battlefield did not trust the aliens to stay gone, so they took turns keeping watch. In the eerie quiet after the battle the gravely injured women could be heard on the ground and the men could not stand it. The rebel men collected the injured women and took them back to the underground caves, just as they did the injured men. The women were infuriated, but in no position to fight.

I began to understand, through my family, that Paterian women believed themselves above simple things, like healing. A strong woman should either live or die on her own. The men did not agree and set to cleaning and patching the women's wounds.

My men patched up many women before they Lay down to rest. ALL of them knew it could have been one our girls laying out there. Damien and his Brothers felt a duty to the injured women. ALL the men from the camps felt that way.

Live to fight another day.

The saying was from Earth and it was the first thing that I thought of when I understood the women's strange beliefs. My family found the phrase usable and started saying it in Paterian to the stubborn women refusing healing. By way of the communication pads, the saying spread across the planet.

“Do not die now!" Damien commanded one of them that was refusing to get on his transport.

“Live to fight another day. There is no strength in dying in the sand right now! Help us defend this world when the sun rises