I was feeling very pressed for time and wasn’t in the mood to waste anymore with Nurse going off the rails so I turned on my Prime Speed Control key to buy myself some breathing room. Everything around me froze as I stared down at the male swarm that I was holding in my hand.

Sure enough, it was a spikey and more aggressive-looking variant of the swarm that I had seen so far. The drones that I remembered were less built up around the thorax and this male seemed to have articulated spikes around its enlarged head. Most of its body spikes were tucked in against its body, as though out of consideration for any being who might inadvertently handle it.

That in and of itself was a strange thing. If I was a male I would have thought that I would have tried to prevent anyone from ever touching me, what with their hive’s instinctive nature to hunt them down for their brains.

‘Ok, Nurse, I am going to need you to chill out.’ I thought at her through the insistent chant she was shouting inside my mind.

“I obey, Monarch.” Came the quick and ready reply as she simply stopped yelling in my mind.

The speed at which she broke out of whatever loop she had been locked in stunned me and it took my mind a second to catch up.

‘What? Just like that?’

“Indeed. Sorry that I didn’t think to warn you about the possibility that that might happen. I just never thought we would ever see one out here.”

‘Why not?’

“Because! It is a male! They live to live. No one from your universe could have caught it.”

‘I could see that if it was as tiny as a drone but Nurse… this thing is huge! Also, it isn’t moving. Kind of hard not to get caught if you don’t move.’ I thought to her as something else pressing occurred to me. There were other people nearby who needed my help right now. People who, oddly enough in contrast to the swarm male I was holding, needed to move and to not get caught. It would be best to try to deliver on giving them aid. I willed my swarm around the vessel to cradle the end of the massive ship and to start it moving as I pulsed my Prime Speed Control key off and on to allow real-time to pass in increments. I quickly inspected the male swarm in my hand while flipping the key on and off to give myself as much time as I needed.

To the Blidda who were watching me, it may have looked like time was broken around me as I moved my hand in jerky motions faster than the eye could follow.

“It is ancient and appears to be… dead.” Nurse said softly.

‘Dead? Show me how you figured this out please.’

“Just look at the swarm around you like you did before. You should be able to see the male as well if it was alive.”

I did so and found that my hand glowed with thousands of tiny pinpricks of light while the swarm male just sat there inert. Curiously, it actually blocked me from seeing the swarm I controlled through its body as well. I found this odd because nothing, so far anyway, had been able to stop me from seeing the swarm that was surrounding the ship.

‘Huh.’

“Huh, indeed. As a side note Kevin, I do not recommend that you eat this male's brain. Regardless of how old it is, I believe that absorbing a male swarm's mind would be even worse for you than merging with mine.” Nurse said as I turned off the Prime Speed Control key and moved back towards the wide-eyed Blidda.

“So yeah, sorry but I have some questions before I leave,” I said as I turned my attention back to the five.

Oh, right, it had only been a couple of moments since I was just about to leave. My behavior must have really seemed bizarre to them.

I noticed that none of the Blidda caught on to the fact that the gel inside their pods had slowly shifted due to the steady increase in velocity of their vessel.

I couldn’t help but smile at the look of defeat on the pilot’s face as he placed his gooey hands over his eyes in despair. That pod gel stuff stank and I wouldn’t have wanted it anywhere near my nose if I could help it, least of all if I was wallowing in despair.

The three Blidda who I considered to be security guards were simply standing still and staring at me. One of them was holding the last nest billet, having caught it easily out of the air when I had tossed it to him. Kiv, bless her, at least had a mind that couldn’t stand being inactive for too long. She was already moving towards the first billet that had tumbled on the floor near her feet. She bent down to pick it up from amongst the shredded sheets of cr and waved her scanner at it out of curiosity.

She grunted oddly before reaching out her hand and waved the scanner over the other billet in the nearby guards' hand.

I couldn’t really read Blidda's facial responses yet but I could tell that she was in a state of shock at just how she moved.

“Captain! He gives us Leva nest material!” She said in a sharp tone.

“What? Why? He must know that it is already too late.” The captain said as he sloshed back in his pod.

I didn’t know how this guy ever became a captain with such a broken backbone but I hoped that they would replace him soon. I didn’t see the Blidda resistance ever getting anywhere at this rate. It was a wonder to me that they even got this far with developing the technology that could counter the Tela.

“Not to rain on your pity party but while we escape could you tell me a little bit about this?” I asked as I walked back up to the group while holding up the little figurine. I could tell that the three security guards were having trouble with their protective training because they kept wanting to raise their weapons on me again, only to quickly lower them a second later when they remembered what had happened just moments ago.

“Escape?” The captain asked me, his expression lost and his mind only able to focus on one thing at a time.

Ok, so maybe I could read their expressions a little.

I pointed at the terminal that Kiv had been frequenting and shrugged.

“How are you even the captain?” I asked as I began to wonder aloud. “Because the only thing that said that you had any bravery was the command to set off the self-destruct… but even you wouldn’t have been the one pressing the button. It would have been Kiv.” I said as I watched to see if my poking would rile him up.

“You would never understand.” He said softly as I walked up closer to his pod to look him in the eye.

“Oh? Please enlighten me.” I asked as I got close. I heard a gasp of air escape Kiv’s lips, I guessed that she had finally noticed that their ship was already moving and was well on its way away from the station.

The captain just sat there for several moments before he inhaled and answered me, keeping his eyes locked on my helm the whole time.

“A captain decides the fates of many. You just prance around and have only yourself to worry about. I just had to condemn my family and loved ones to death aboard this vessel. Because I failed to kill you, now it will cost the lives of every last Blidda in existence.” He said, causing the hair to stand on the back of my neck.

What the heck was he going on about?

Just to be polite to everyone present, I caused my helmet to dissolve so I could look him in the eye as well. He didn’t flinch but I noticed the three guards do so out of the corner of my eye. I think they didn’t like what they saw, a strange-looking alien that was missing two eyes.

I lowered my voice to match his. “I understand the first reason that you mentioned but I don’t get the second part. Please explain.”

He simply sat there staring at me as if he had already given up. I heard Kiv step closer to the two of us before she answered just as softly.

“What we did… the weapon we used on you. If found by the Tela it would mean death for our race.” She said before softly continuing. “All Blidda, everywhere.”

Oh.

‘Nurse, can you have the swarm search this ship for any trackers please.’ I thought as I turned towards Kiv with a smile.

“Then I guess today is your lucky day,” I said.

“Kiv? What is he saying?” The despondent captain asked as he looked back and forth between Kiv and I.

“We are already well beyond the heliopause Captain. We have escaped.” Kiv said, her voice cracking a little from emotion.

“But… but… how?” He asked, a tiny spark of life fighting its way into his voice.

She just turned her head and looked at me in answer.

The captain stirred and moved to the edge of his pod, quickly accessing his personal terminal.

“My family will live.” He whispered so quietly to himself. I might not have heard it except for the fact that I saw his lips move and had my helm magnify what he had said.

“There are no trackers on this vessel Kevin.” Nurse said inside my mind. “But I don’t think that it would matter with how you demonstrated your power by jetting through the station. Someone, heck, anyone would want to know what you were up to and would be curious about this ship after the fact.”

‘Yeah… I hadn’t thought of that. All of my focus was on getting Meditati back and I had no way of knowing what these guys would have been sitting in the middle of. Well, besides the fact that they were dealing in black market Tela tech. Now I really need to get this ship as far away as fast as I can. Send part of the swarm back towards the station to play interference if they try to track this ship’s trajectory.’ I said to Nurse as I tried to think about all of the possible ways that this could play out.

“Well guys, I have good news and bad news. Your ship does not have any Tela tracers.” I announced to the crew. “That was the good news. The bad news is that I caused a bit of a commotion leaving the station to catch you guys. I am pretty sure that, if anything, that would gain unneeded attention.”

“Then we are still all doomed.” The captain said.

Man, this guy was all doom and gloom.

“Yes and no. Just give me a second to think of something.” I said as I began to feel a little worry start to creep into my mind. There were just too many unknowns and I didn’t like the fact that I was all of a sudden a part of whether or not these countless aliens lived or died.

“While I am thinking, would you all get inside your pods and secure yourselves for increased Gs? I may need to move your ship faster than normal.” I said as I tried to think.

“There is no outrunning the Tela, Kevin. If we drew the scientist’s attention at all then all the parasite will need to do is wait until we log our passage and dock at a new station. She will instruct her cr robots to search our ship and our technology will be found.” Kiv said softly.

“Then how did you all stay out of the spotlight this long?” I asked.

“By not being seen. We do research on our voyage between systems. Tela are not omniscient, they don’t bother with every ship in existence. We also stay clear of their Cores, only visiting the stations that exist on the border of their solar systems.”

“Hmm…” I muttered as I began to pace back and forth, in thought.

“Oh! What is this and where did it come from?” I asked as I held up the male swarm figurine.

“The Ryglath artifact?” Kiv asked as she glanced at the captain and back at Kevin. The captain bobbed his head upwards, which seemed to be the same thing as nodding for Blidda.

“The exact history of the five Ryglath artifacts are unknown. They appear to be left behind by an ancient alien race who went extinct long ago and vanished from the cosmos without a trace. This artifact that you hold is believed to be an idol of hidden things. Four other idols were found by the Blidda when they fouled up a remote asteroid mining machine in deep space ages ago. I, or rather, we had this one because we believed that it will bless our crew with insights on how to defeat the Tela.”

“Ask them about the other four, please.” Nurse prodded, still being bound by her genetic programming to locate male swarm whenever possible.

“What about the other four? Where are they?” I asked as I tossed the figurine into the air and caught it several times while I listened. The repetitive movement must have woken the three guards up to the fact that they were just being idle while the deck of the ship was a mess around us. I heard them talk to each other softly, choosing one of their group to stand guard on me while the other two went to work cleaning up the trashed cr netting at our feet.

Again Kiv glanced at the captain for permission before continuing once she received his nod. He seemed to have finally gotten over the trauma that had occurred when he realized that his family could have been killed by his hand. I could almost hear his mind rebuilding itself and his willpower coming back. He kept glancing at his terminal while I spoke to Kiv, as though he was keeping track of something.

“I don’t know. They are coveted artifacts by collectors and as far as I know, the others have been sold. My family decided never to sell ours because we believed that it could help us defeat the Tela. It displays a quality shared with the infamous Tela’s technology.”

“What kind of quality?” I asked as I looked again down at the little swarm male that was holding a ball of solid nothing.

“No weapon can harm it,” Kiv said as her eyes narrowed at me before she glanced at the scraps and the destroyed crate lid. “However, I see that we were all mistaken.”

“He has done it.” The pilot suddenly said while watching his console.

“We have passed enough trading lanes?” Kiv asked as her eyes stayed locked on me.

“More than enough.”

“Then we clear the ship’s registry and upload a new identity,” Kiv said, making me reconsider who was really in control here. My guess was completely confirmed in the next couple of seconds when Kiv took control of her ship's comms and spoke aloud.

“All Blidda have born witness to the agreement?” She asked the air in front of her.

I looked around, wondering if I was missing something.

“I have been monitoring the other wavelengths of light as well and I haven’t seen any other alien but these five.” Nurse said, having guessed my concern.

A horde of voices of all ages sounded off around us from speakers placed in the walls.

“WE HAVE.”

“I Kivasa, daughter of Hem, holds true to her word and sees this agreement as binding.”

“BOUND.” the mass of voices said as one.

“Excuse me?” I asked as the five covered their eyes with their hands for a second before lowering them and returning to what they were doing before.

‘What did I just get wrangled into? I hadn’t even agreed to anything.’ I thought as Kiv or Kivasa moved to stand in front of me.