Servant of the Siphen started out in 2009 as a story provisionally titled Flying, in which Isamura and Caroline take a shuttle out and go exploring.  There was no mission, no away team, just two lovers on a romantic adventure.  In this original draft and all subsequent versions, Isamura asks Caroline to teach her how to fly it.

Various elements were added and then later removed as I continued to write the story and title it Flight of Passion.  For example, there was a version in which Isamura tells Caroline to run and let her deal with a pursuing bandit, and Caroline ends up at an inn run by Meg, who sympathetically offers her a bed to sleep in and then seduces her.

The next version saw significant changes.  Instead of starting on the shuttle, we go back to earlier in the day and the starship Orion, where Caroline is waking up next to Isamura.  As with the current version, power fails and they decide to enjoy each other’s company while they wait for a rescue.

At this point Erica was still called Fred, short for Frederica.  One of my readers didn’t like the name – obviously never watched Angel – so I changed it.

So anyway in this second version, Erica has a bit of a voyeur moment when she arrives at Caroline’s quarters.  In Servant of the Siphen though, she instead just asks them to please put some clothes on.  There are a number of scenes which deal with Erica’s fascination with Caroline and Isamura and these are removed later on or altered to have Erica show a friendly curiosity about their relationship.

The revision to Servant of the Siphen in January 2014 introduced Talestra, a servant of the enemy that the crew of the Orion recently faced.  It also has an eleventh hour appearance by Irena, who claims to be the living avatar of the Orion.