From Within

In the distant future, travelers from Earth seek new worlds for colonization but discover that the native life forms, who do not wish to share their world with the new settlers, will use any tactic to defeat their enemies - including biological warfare. Dr. Michael (Mik) Ashton is a science officer for the Falcon Colony, which searches space for a new world to call its home. After decades of wandering, with most of the colony in deep sleep, they find the habitable planet of Lozzo. Their joy at finding a new home is somewhat hampered when they discover that the planet has its own native sentient life forms called the Agea. The Agea, having never known war, are weaponless and weak. They do not wish to share their world with the Earth settlers but reluctantly agree. At first, the settlers kept to areas on the planet that were unsettled by the Agea, but as the decades passed younger generations of settlers began to grow greedy for lands that the original inhabitants had kept for themselves. On Lozzo, the scientists are finally able to prolong the lives of all the settlers through the growth and replacement of older failing organs - a practice that had been prohibited on Earth due to overpopulation. Mik watches as time progresses. He sees the way the younger generations of colonists begin to abuse the native life forms; stealing their land, and warring with any who oppose the colony's expansion. Though the Agea are not strong in mechanical warfare, they are vastly intelligent, and soon begin to fight the colonists with crude cyborgs and terror tactics. When the colonists begin to mysteriously die, Mik discovers that the greatest enemy is from within. Novelette~

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