"Kevin. Would you take a Global Arbiter Control key as a token of my apology?" was a sound clip that I had my VR space copy for my later enjoyment. Unless I was mistaken, a Global key would allow me to adjust all parameters of all Arbiters I came across, not just the one in my own solar system. Besides my home system, I suspected that I could use it to free the Blidda from their Arbiter as well. It was almost too good to be true.

I slowly paused my movement towards the towering door and gently caressed the hard scales on Ess's head. For some reason, having Ess by my side mixed with the tactile sensation of her armor continually flowing away from beneath my touch helped me in maintaining a straight face. I hadn't expected this offer at all from her and I was almost driven to laugh out loud at how well things had turned out in my favor.

I could tell, even without hearing any change in her voice, just how upset Jebzzbej was with how things had turned out for her and her ally.

"Sure...ack!" I started to say as I turned to look back at her. Instead of seeing a short, armored Tela sporting four tall angry eyestalks, there stood an older and very glamorously dressed brunette lady standing in its place. She was about five and a half feet tall physically yet sported a Victorian beehive hairdo that almost made her look like Marge from the Simpsons. The main difference between Margorie Simpson and Jebzzbej was the luxurious gilded dress and an eye-popping amount of jewelry adorning her person. Even her hair had tiny gems artfully adorning its perfectly piled structure.

I was momentarily at a loss for words as my eyes and brain tried to catch up with the drastic change in her form. She looked like she was dressed for a ball in the 1800s and had stepped straight out of a time machine.

This could only mean one thing...

She had been to earth before.

Her next few words confirmed my guess and also let me see deeper into the personality that this Tela might have displayed back on earth. I could almost taste her disdain for me with every word that she spoke.

"Listen carefully human. I have visited your planet a number of times in the past and I can tell you that you have no idea what powers you are trying to play with. I am not threatening you, per se, but I will enlighten you to the real threats that exist for you." She said, somehow managing to look down her nose at me even though she was quite a bit shorter.

"You may have scoffed at both of our offers, possibly thinking that we were being cheap, when in fact protecting and uplifting a planet is no simple feat. Not only is your tiny planet unstable, the kingdoms I mean, but they still don't exist on a technological scale needed to exist out here in the fields of chaos."

I could almost feel the shift in her mind and vocabulary. It reminded me of how Hxerdinand had mentioned that he needed to "go take a human decompression session". Did that mean that the Tela simply compartmentalized their lives they lived elsewhere, separate from their existence in their Cores? Possibly.

"The truth of the matter is that if you choose to work with me, to break the mysteries of the cosmos in my labs, I can keep your existence hidden. However, the LOW have been categorizing wonders and strange puzzles for ages and many alien races have spent countless generations trying to crack these wonders. Many of them are in the public domain! If you solve even one of those, and it gets out what you are capable of... then you might as well put a death mark on yourself and your home system. No, not even a death mark, something worse: A mark of subjugation. Some old alien races remember the wars before and will do anything for the power that they witnessed." She said as she held up an object in her hand. It was an old-fashioned bronze key.

"Consider this: I own this key because it was my family of scientists that created the Arbiters and forced the Tela to vote to use them. It was either our system of enforced peace or to let the General commit genocide against every race that had a hand raised against us. Near the end of it all, there was a total of sixteen species that chose to use their resources against us, either in direct combat or by proxy. Sixteen people's that would have ceased to exist if it wasn't for my families' efforts." She said as she waved the key in front of me.

"Now, in exchange for this, you will vow only to..."

Before she could continue further, I turned on my heel and walked away from her. How quickly she had reverted to her manipulative way of thinking. I was not going to offer myself as her pawn, or anyone else for that matter.

"Now just a moment!" came a squawk from behind me that I ignored.

I wanted so badly to have punched her smug powdered face as she started to tell me that she could set restrictions and demands on me in exchange for something that she had just offered as an apology.

My blood was boiling, and it was only after I had taken several steps towards the huge door that I heard the tail end of Jebzzbej's lengthy old lady scream as it seemed to rapidly trail away from me and into the distance. I glanced over my shoulder only to see Jebzzbej bouncing off the distant wall and falling to the floor like a tossed rag doll. It almost looked like she was injured, even though that was impossible.

"What the heck just happened?" I asked aloud only to have Ess gently headbutt my hand and to nudge me along towards the door. Nurse and Meditati were oddly silent which made me have to enter VR for just a moment to see what had taken place.

It seemed that in the moment that I turned around to keep on walking Ess's tail had circled around upon itself like a coiling spring. The moment that Jebzzbej had noticed that she had unceremoniously lost my attention she had begun to angrily move forward towards me, this action had resulted in her body crossing some line which Ess seemed to not appreciate. With a speed that made my jaw drop Ess's tail flicked out and smashed into Jebzzbej like Babe Ruth looking for a homerun.

Ess hit the Tela so hard that Jebzzbej's cr seemed to lose cohesion upon contact. It was almost like a rock had hit a calm pond in the way the ripples traveled through Jebzzbej's frame before she was thrown across the huge room.

"Wow..." was all I could say as I left VR to consider my pet. I stared at her huge eyeless head for a few moments before laughing aloud and reaching my arms around her to give her a huge hug. "Who is my amazing girl?" I said with a chuckle as the huge door cycled open to let us both into the massive airlock. I walked, with my arm draped over Ess's head all the way to the outer airlock and couldn't stop chuckling the entire way. Even Ess seemed to be laughing as her tail wiggled more than normal as she floated along next to me.

"Wait!" I heard a now all too familiar voice calling out from behind me.

"Meditati, she is really wearing on my last nerve here," I said mentally. Even Ess seemed surprised at the tenacity of the Tela scientist as her large head bobbed in surprise. Jebzzbej wisely had remained well back and clear from Ess's tail, but she still seemed intent on trying to secure or strong-arm me into some deal.

"I know. I should have known that her personality would be at odds with your own. She just doesn't see you or your race as significant. In her mind, your ability to control the swarm is like a beggar being handed untold wealth. It is an obscene violation of order to her, and she is having trouble coming to terms with it, even at the cost of losing any goodwill with you." Meditati said.

"Kevin, with your permission, I will handle her. You go reunite with your friends and get Sublimis a decent meal. George and Invicta have just docked on the other side of Tutor's ship, and they are all excited to see you." Nurse said out of the blue.

"Ok, but..." I started to clarify that I didn't want her to kill Jebzzbej before I remembered that Nurse literally knew my mind and what I would or wouldn't allow. "Sure, could you also retrieve my ship from its cargo hold and deliver it to Tutor's ship as well?" I asked, knowing that she could do both things at once. The airlock opened and let Ess and I take our first gliding movements into open space together. From this vantage point, I couldn't see just how large Tutor's ship was since it seemed to cover most of the horizon. Massive station searchlights lit up a good portion of the ship. It seemed as though the station was trying to keep an eye on as much of the warship as possible.

Tutor had really gone all out in mining a tremendous amount of cr for each of our ships.

"I will handle it. Now forget about her and go see your friends." She said before she manifested.

"Oh no, she is doing that thing again," Meditati said as Nurse manifested in a totally different manner than I had expected.

To the station command, all of the various aliens aboard the station, and the terrified ships hanging frozen in space nearby, it appeared as though Tutor's ship had begun to spawn a poltergeist.

Massive spiky limbs formed and began to press out from the side of Tutor's warship as though the previously solid bulkheads had suddenly become thin sheets of plastic. Following the dagger-tipped limbs came Nurse's gigantic swarm head pushing its way into existence. The warship didn't shrink so much as it just seemed to be giving up its substance to create the horror that was flowing out of it. Nurse left a gap in her forming body for Ess and I to fly through before sealing it off after our passing. Everyone on the station watched as her massive head twitched downwards with a seemingly impossible speed to focus on the small airlock that held Jebzzbej.

An airlock that held a tiny Tela scientist who was suddenly rethinking her recent life choices.

Like a praying mantis seizing its prey, Nurse speared the Tela's starship that was docked to the next airlock and began to dig through the wall to fish the scientist out with her other massive limb.

Had I been watching I would have seen what everyone on the station collectively thought was impossible.

The monster ate them both, the entire Tela spaceship and a floofy old Victorian lady, all in one bite.

The rest of Nurse finished manifesting as she reached her arms around the station, covering a huge portion of it with her mass. For some reason, it reminded me exactly of the pose that the little male swarm figurine had died in, a swarm with its limbs clutching something tangible. An odd thought, I will admit, just something that I noticed.

I knew that Nurse was being super gentle with the station, barely even touching it except where she cut through the seal to my hanger. She retrieved the contents of my ship through her swarm limb, not needing to pretend anymore that it was an actual ship. She made sure to restore the seal to the station when she was done. After that she simply froze in place, having a conversation with the Tela in her mouth, I presumed.

"Well, Ess? Ready to go home? Tutor, George, and Invicta are waiting for us, and I think it is about time that you met them too." I asked, using her helm to transmit sound so that she could hear my voice. I knew she couldn't understand me, but she seemed to be able to sense what I was feeling by the tone of my voice. We both rushed towards Tutor's ship where a door had formed in the side. I knew that Tutor had to be curious about what I was doing to her ship because I could see the systematic reconstruction of walls forming as she tried to rebuild into the gaping hole that was formed when Nurse commandeered the cr.

By the time we reached the side of the ship Tutor had finished rebuilding an expansive cargo hold for Ess and I could just see three figures waiting for us just within the opening. I don't know why, but the closer I got to those three people the more my emotions swelled and fought for release.

I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time and when I saw them all move to intercept me, even before we had made it to within fifty feet from the opening, I found that I had to do both. The next thing I knew I was hugging George and Tutor together while Invicta was tightly attached to my neck. In space, there is no sound, just the emotion on my friend's faces as we all held one another.

Ess, surprisingly, didn't interfere. She just swirled around us as though she was blocking our reunion from the sight of others.

We, finally, were all back together again.