Once the laughter finally faded and Kivasa regained her composure I had a sudden lightbulb moment.

“So, your weapon, how did the Blidda figure it out? It blocks power and communication to the Cores.” I asked as I stood outside of the door to the airlock.

Kivasa’s eyes went round when she heard my question and she tried to subvocalize without me hearing her.

“Sister, did you know this?”

Needless to say, my helm was still working overtime so it picked up her question easily. What it did not pick up was the reply from her sister.

“I think they all have implanted bone mics for communication around the ship.” Nurse said. I could just imagine that she had already checked the Blidda’s ears for alien technology.

“Well, maybe he could help you with the overheating problem.” Kivasa continued her secret conversation with her sister while pretending to inspect the panel on the airlock door. This distinction between the capabilities of the Yelvos and the Blidda was like night and day. The Yelvos seemed to mentally be able to communicate with as many entities as needed at one time while Kivasa was having difficulty pretending that she wasn’t trying to have a secret conversation with her sister right in front of me.

“Kevin,” Kivasa began, acting like she had been slowly deciding whether or not to reveal Blidda secrets to me. I could see right through her pretty easily. I had surmised that she was the real navigator of this vessel and head of the clan while her hidden sister was the actual scientist behind the technology.

At least that was my first guess, I had been wrong before. Very wrong.

“Yes?” I asked, trying not to smile as she tried to act out whatever she had come up with in secret with her sister.

“Would you be willing to consult with my science team before you leave? I mean, since this is probably the last time that we will see each other in this lifetime and all.”

It was my turn to cock my head to the side in puzzlement at her words.

“I think she means because of how long it takes for normal people to travel between star systems. Your possession of a higher density of matter from my dimension breaks the rules of what can normally be done on this side of the divide.” Nurse told me.

“So what are your plans once I leave?” I asked Kivasa, choosing to hold off on giving my reply whether or not I would help them with their weapon issues. I still wasn’t sure where I stood on the whole war issue.

No, I take that back, I hated war. My grandfather had served in the war and it had changed him for the rest of his life.

I remembered a time when I was a child and I had been so excited to see my grandfather again that I ran up behind him to hug him. The moment my arms clasped his waist from behind was the moment that his whole demeanor instantly changed. No longer was he a chuckling and loving grandfather. Suddenly he had become a young Army parachuter again in a life or death battle.

His PTSD almost took over. He had to step quickly away, with a wild look in his eyes, and sternly warned me never to do that again.

“I could have hurt you, Kevin. Very badly.” He said, clearly shaken from how close he had come to striking his grandson. Fearing himself and how close the shock had sent him back to who he had needed to become to survive the war.

So yes, I hated war.

The two outer eyes on either side of Kivasa’s head closed while her main front set of eyes stared off into the distance while she slowly answered. I didn’t understand what her closing her eyes meant but I could understand the thousand-mile stare that she was giving off.

“We will continue around the inhabited systems, researching as we go. One day we will have the weapons we need to have the revenge my race seeks for what was done to us.”

“If it is not too much to ask… can you tell me about the war between the Blidda and the Tela?”

“Between us and them? There was no war between my race and the Tela. We were simply hired for our science by two other species who were at war with the Tela. It was our participation in aiding their enemies that caused them to wipe out so many of us though in the end. They blamed a high percentage of their deaths on our involvement even though we never entered combat with them.”

“What did your science contribute?” I asked.

“We developed sensors to detect their locations in the cosmos. A cosmic pinging device. Due to its limitations, it kept them on the run, constantly having to move to another system.”

“So how did they escape?” I asked, wondering how the Tela had managed to get away from such a nefarious and ingenious technology.

“Oh, it was quite easy actually once they discovered what their enemies had been using to track them with. For every problem, there is a solution. Some are even really simple.” She said before she clapped her hands together as though she was cleaning them. “They created clouds of dust and moved to systems filled with cosmic chaff.” Kivasa seemed happy for a moment until she continued. “We had all thought that we had seen the last of them, that they had gone off to die in some remote system. If only it were true.”

“So they came out and did what? Killed everyone?” I asked, hoping that it wasn’t the case.

“No, mercifully no. Sure they did end a lot of lives but it all seemed very calculated… almost artificial in the end. It was as though they had had enough and had told someone else to do the killing. Someone who didn’t care and just had a job to do. Had they been like the U’lennea… all life in the cosmos would have been brutally killed with their new technology. We are all very fortunate that that wasn’t the case. After they dolled out their calculated revenge they spread out and sat weapons on everyone’s doorsteps to keep them all in line.” Kivasa said as her eyes focused on me again.

“My sister is the clan’s top scientist and she won’t leave me alone with requests to meet you. She is already out of her pod and in her lab if you want to go meet her.” She said, tilting her head to the side again. This time I noticed that her head tilt allowed her large ears to focus on wherever she was tilting her head. Sadly this action was wasted on me unless I manifested a heart for her to listen in on. Hearing was a powerful weapon when used by a race whose physiology was centered around it.

“Sure, lead the way,” I said. “But, would it be possible to move a little faster? This ship is huge and I would have thought that there would be a faster way of getting around than what we have been doing.”

“Ah, my apologies. Had you said something earlier I would have done something. You just seemed so used to walking on your flat feet that I thought that it was how you preferred to move.” She said as she subvocalized a command to turn off the ship's artificial gravity. “Keep up if you can.” She said before she grabbed ahold of the wall and launched herself down the hallway.

Her removing the ship's artificial gravity did something interesting that I hadn’t considered, it let the strange gas at my feet spread everywhere. It didn’t block vision but it did seem to give Kivasa more energy as she launched herself energetically away from me. Had I been making it harder for them to breathe by not requesting them to turn off the artificial gravity? I wasn’t sure.

I flew after her through the suddenly surreal and slightly hazy environment that I found myself in.

‘Was this what the surface of her planet was like? No wonder they relied on their ears so much.’ I thought to Nurse as I picked up my pace to follow.

“I don’t know, it would make sense though. Once we get back to your AI we can have you take a class on the Blidda. It will probably answer many of these questions.”

Keeping up with Kivasa was no problem at all for me and it did give me time to admire her flawless acrobatics while moving in zero gravity. At first, she seemed to be trying her hardest to lose me, giving all of her focus over to zipping through corridors and up to different levels. She might have been doing this to prove a point that I wouldn’t be able to keep up or something. It was after hearing her scream, being started for the second time when she found me keeping pace less than five feet behind her, that she finally got the hint and stopped trying to show off.

This was how we arrived at her sister's laboratory, with her out of breath and me trying to hold in my laughter.

“That was not fair! Using your suit to speed your way through the ship. I could have beaten you if you had used the handholds and rails like a true Blidda.” She said as she flapped her arms around her body, cooling down.

“Umm… yeah, about that,” I said as I raised my hand to look at it. “That probably wouldn’t have been a good idea, not unless you want your hallways ripped to shreds and me punching holes through your ship if I misjudge my trajectory while in flight.”

“Truly?” Came a questioning voice from the ceiling, causing me to be a little startled for once.

“....yeah, truly,” I said, looking around really fast for the voice and finding a mirror image of Kivasa attached to the high ceiling by her toes.

Right, just like bats.

Kivasa launched herself upwards and came to stand next to her sister, greeting her by squeezing her arms with both of her hands before they both turned their heads to look down at me.

I smacked myself in the face. “Right! There is no up or down in zero G. I am such an idiot.” I muttered as I flipped over and lowered myself down towards the new floor.

“Hi!” I said in greeting once I got closer to the pair. I wasn’t about to try to mess up more alien greetings by touching her arms as well.

“Hello, human named Kevin. My name is Jelesv. I am very interested in studying you.” Jelesv said. Her name was said like “Jeles” with static stuck on the end so I just picked a V and added it to her name to remind myself to at least try to say it correctly. Her greeting was a little bit ominous, seeing that I had never had someone greet me by stating that they wanted to study me before.

“Ah, hello. So, this is your lab?” I asked as I looked around at the drab walls in the larger than normal room that we had ended up in. I had failed to notice that the doors had slid shut silently behind us when we came in. I couldn’t hear any of the ghosts speaking at all and I was starting to get the feeling that this might have been a trap.

“Indeed! This room is sealed off from the rest of the ship so that we can speak privately. Not only that but this room is lined with sheets of Tela’s cr so that I can work on hazardous technology without worry. I usually work from behind sheets of cr though to keep myself safe. Seeing what you can do to their secret technology though excites me to no end. Can you demonstrate how you do it for me?” She asked as her ears seemed to twitch like she had had too much coffee to drink.

“Sure. Why not.” I answered. “But only this once and then you have to describe how your weapon works before I leave.”

“To return to your… Leva?” She asked, having clearly been listening to every word I had spoken since stepping foot on the spaceship.

“Yeah. Her name is Sublimis or Ess for short. She is just a few days old. I found her lost in a blue dwarf.”

“I want to believe you but I can’t. I just can’t see how that can be possible. You speak so casually about impossible things.” Jelesv said as a side door opened, letting in a small drone that flew towards us three.

“Impossible how?” I asked after glancing from the drone back to the sisters. It didn't bother me at all that she didn't believe me. I wouldn't have believed myself either.

“Lie number one: There isn’t a blue dwarf star anywhere near the Yelvos trading station that you came from. I know a little about Leva eggs needing to hatch once they are taken from suns and your claim doesn’t make sense. Lie number two: No one can tame a Leva in such a short amount of time. Lie number three: Well, maybe not a lie… but you named her?”

“Well, she did try to smash me against the wall a few times,” I said as I remembered back to when Ess first was hatched.

“Lies! That would have meant that you were the first creature that she saw when she was hatched! Hatchlings ram into their parent’s sides to test their dominance.”

The drone was carrying a sheet of material that I presumed was more cr so I simply took it and ripped it in half.

“What were you saying? I couldn’t hear you.” I said as I proceeded to make smaller and smaller pieces of the sheet in front of her. I didn't have any more time to waste here on someone that didn't believe me and just wanted to be on my way.

“Wait wait WAIT! Can you please stop and do that in front of my recorder?” She screamed as she saw the sheet getting smaller and smaller and her window of my compliance vanishing before her eyes. Next, once I was done, she would have to answer my questions and then I would leave.

“Sure, just reign in your cynicism until like the second date ok? That stuff is annoying.” I said as I paused my destruction of the small sheets of cr.

“Date?” Both of the sisters said at the same time, their eyes blinking at me.

“Ummm… I misspoke.” I said, only finding them both not listening to me and talking really fast to each other. I could have slowed down what they were saying but decided not to. I had stuck my foot in my mouth again and I really didn’t want to listen in on what they were saying about me right now.

Two more drones came into the room. These were fashioned each like half of a sphere and both were hollow in their center.

Science seemed to take over in Jelesv’s mind while Kivasa’s ears were still standing up like tent poles. I wasn’t sure but I was beginning to think that that signified embarrassment. Maybe? I wasn’t entirely sure.

“Please place your hands between the observation ball and let it close around them before tearing the sheet again,” Jelesv said as she brought the two flying halves between us and moved them in place with my hands between them. The halves snapped rapidly together as though they were powered by magnets and I could feel a gel-like sensation around my wrists as it sealed itself together.

The first drone that had delivered the cloth to me began shining images on the walls all around us. It was strange to see my hands from all sides at once on display. I guessed that this was where the extra eyes came in handy because it didn’t seem to bother the Blidda as both of the sisters began to watch as the sphere finished sealing itself around my hands.

“Whoa, that is different,” I said as I stood there looking around at the 360 images of my hands currently on display.

“Could you please start to tear the cr apart?”

“Want me to do it slowly?” I asked.

“No, it doesn’t matter, everything is being recorded.”

“Ok,” I said as I started to tear the sheets apart again.

“STOP! Did you see that?” She yelled after I had restacked and retorn the sheets into even smaller pieces a couple of times.

“See what?” I asked and was ignored completely as Jelesv started to control and rewind the video by using the controls on the drone. I almost laughed at her antics and at how much she was zooming in on the sheets over and over again. All I could hear in my head were the words “Enhance, enhance, enhance, enhance!“ from a scene in a movie I had seen back on earth.

"Don’t mind her. She gets this way when she is doing her science things.” Kivasa said as she stepped a little closer to whisper to me.

“Ah, I get it. I am this way when I read a book or watch a tv.” I replied as I smiled back at her. It was a little bit strange having my hands encased inside a tightly sealed ball in front of me.

“So… is a date like courting?” Kivasa asked as she kept getting even closer to me.

Oh no.

I had to get off this ship as fast as possible.