"Kevin, may I fulfill my purpose with Sublimis as well?" Tutor called out to me after I had finished speaking to George. "Your purpose Tutor?" I asked as she glided closer so that we could talk.

"Yes. As much as you have freed and changed me, I still have the basic need to teach the young." She said as she turned to stand beside me. Feeling her so close reminded me of the special moment that we shared together when I had asked her to sit beside me on the couch. I reached out my left hand to slip it around her waist and was just a little bit pleased and surprised with how she smoothly slid closer so that our hips touched. I found her head resting against my shoulder in the next moment and her arm around my back.

"Thanks." was all I said as we both watched Ess getting her zoomies out off in the distance.

"I really almost messed it all up."

"You can't control everything, Kevin. People lose pets to rattlesnakes back on earth all the time. Space is no different. You did the best that you could, and you took care of Sublimis when she needed you. That is all that anyone could have asked of you."

We were both silent for a couple of moments until I felt her arm tighten a little.

"But this Nurse swarm entity, thing, person... that was another matter altogether. There was no data or any way of knowing how creating one would have turned out. In the short amount of time that I have observed the swarm and what it can do, I am beginning to think that all life is at risk from their ability to exist in our dimension. They subdivide Kevin! They replicate and spread and as far as we have seen, cannot be killed by normal means. Of all the creatures that the Tela have cataloged that live in space, only the Queiie are slightly similar in how they replicate. Perhaps it is due to how close they exist next to stars and the hearts of galaxies." Tutor said.

"I know. The answer to your first question is yes, you may go ahead with teaching Ess." I said as I held up my hand to will Nurse to manifest a tiny ant form in my palm. "As for your concerns, please feel free to ask Nurse any and all questions that you may think of," I said as I willed the little simulated body of Nurse to move to hover in front of Tutor.

I knew that it was just a gesture, Nurse was hidden somewhere around us and didn't need a form for Tutor to speak to her since she could see through the drones all around us. The difference between the two entities was their base existence. Nurse wanted to spread and absorb all life while Tutor, being digital, wanted to absorb all knowledge. They both were modified, in an odd way, by being tied to me. It was the unforeseen blending and merging of different forms of life that resulted in us all being a blend of each other.

"When you get some time, I need you to look over Meditati for me as well," I said as I remembered my earlier misgivings. "Something is off, I can feel it, with her."

Tutor squeezed me for a moment before letting go and stepping away. "Yes, George and I felt the same the moment that she entered and took up residence inside your VR space. She... seems to be damaged somehow. It is as though she was stripped and has lost her purpose."

"Well, check her out and give her what she needs to get back to her simulating ways. That might help." I said as I turned to head towards the back of the massive ship and where George was waiting. Before I left the cavern, I noticed that Tutor had begun to make changes to the environment that made Ess zoom over to investigate. Soon the entire cavern was filled with assortments of hoops, tunnels, massive houses, and floating stones that Ess could explore freely.

"I will bring her around in about an hour so train fast. Your Leva needs food." Tutor called after me as I went through the massive door leading to the cargo hold of the ship.

"Yes, she does," I muttered to myself as I zoomed the extensive distance to the back of the ship. I didn't take any time to look at any of the many crates lining the shelves that I passed. There would be time enough for that later.

"Hey, Meditati... will the Skii be alright in their crates?" I asked as a thought popped into my mind. I didn't want the black stick-like aliens to die on me even though they had seemingly forced their way into my lap.

"Yes, their bodies will remain in stasis for up to five years before we need to decide anything." Her voice sounded from somewhere close to my right.

"Ok, thanks, Meditati!"

"Any time."

This was really good news to me. I had no idea what I was going to do with a clan of light-seeking stick beings.

In the back of my head, I made a list of things that I needed to get done ASAP while we were in transit.

Absorb all the Tela technology so that the swarm could rebuild it and use it.

Send a ship with an Alpha key back to earth.

Protect and improve the earth.

Make many ships with Alpha keys so that we could live and explore everywhere. Also, to make us less of a target.

Figure out what to do with the Skii and create a separate slow ship for them.

Finish reading the Last Engineer's book.

Explore.

Train and have fun.

As I flew I looked at the list and tried to think of anything else that I needed to accomplish. Mostly, I just wanted to get back to earth so that I could see my family, other things could come after that.

"I will work on that list for you," Nurse chimed in, startling me a little bit. I didn't think I would ever get used to other beings having access to my thoughts.

"Ok. Thanks, Nurse. Do you need to add anything to it?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do." She said as she added a line down at the bottom.

Send swarm to retrieve the lost twenty-four male swarm.

"Twenty-four? What? Where the heck did you find twenty-four more?"

"It was during my conversation with Jebzzbej that I learned the locations of the missing male swarm as well as obtaining this for you." She said as she manifested the Global Arbiter Control key for me to observe for a second before reabsorbing the swarm used to create it.

"And you left her alive and intact?" I asked, just to make double sure. Jebzzbej had been like a stick in the mud concerning giving up that key and I just had to make sure that Nurse hadn't killed her for it.

"Yes, Kevin, just as you would have wished me to."

"Well, huh..." I muttered before mentally accepting her role in helping me get what she could do on my list. "Have at it then. I know you will do what I need."

I felt the shifts in the swarm around me the moment that I agreed to let Nurse help me. The list changed, adding pending states with percentages next to each of the parts of the list that were achievable by Nurse and not something that I wanted to personally see to myself like reading the book, training, and having fun.

"Hey Kevin, do you remember that arcade game that came out when you were a child? The one called Galaga?" George asked me out of the blue as I jetted through the final set of doors and into a massive open space where George was waiting a short distance away.

"Vaguely," I said as I recalled all of the little pixel alien enemies that would swarm to the top of the screen before eventually trying to dive bomb my little blue vessel at the bottom of the screen. I had many fond memories of playing it at the local pizza parlor whenever we would visit for birthday parties.

"Why do you ask?" I asked as I looked around at the space that George had hollowed out at the aft part of the ship. If I had thought that the Yelvos trading asteroid was sizeable, this room could swallow five such structures easily and still have room left over for at least one more. The room was lit by countless arrays of photon bulbs all around the surface, creating a nearly shadowless space or theater for whatever he had in store.

"Why the heck is this place so big? Surely you didn't bring that many Queiie back with you to fill this space up with." I asked as I came to a stop next to him. At the far end of the theater of open space, there were four mega cubes that my helm identified as bulk raw material feed.

"Anything special in their diet?" I asked as I wondered what the cubes were made of.

"Oh, pretty much anything really. Those cubes are just compressed asteroids full of carbon, platinum, lead, and other various elements. The Queiie will pretty much eat anything." George answered my last question first with a smile.

"As for how many I got, just five. And before you can begin to think that five is too few to feed your hatchling... just wait and see what happens when you feed five savage Queiie a feast." George said as a portal opened at the other side of the theater. Five Queiie zoomed out as though they were crazed. They each had their limbs splayed wide like threatened spiders as they made their way into the open space.

"Yeah, I will have to take your word, from here they look like a tiny snack for Ess," I said softly as I watched the five. They quickly roamed towards one of the cubes and seemed to attack the smooth surface with a crazed abandon.

"They act like they are hyped up on drugs and on a murder spree. What is wrong with them?" I asked as the five tore chunks from the cube and began to stuff their mouth on the lower part of their bodies.

"Well, Queiie exhibit an interesting colony behavior. That was why I asked you if you remembered the game called Galaga. You see, the fewer there are, the more aggressive and dangerous the Queiie are. Just watch." George said as we observed the space crabs as they gorged themselves at speed.

It was a bizarre thing to watch because the one that began feasting first seemed to be getting sick for some reason. At least that was what it looked like to me. Its whole body started to convulse as though it was dry heaving and getting ready to vomit. Its odd behavior continued and soon the other crabs were getting sick as well.

No, not sick, the first appeared to be molting. Its convulsions were causing its shell to start to be forced forward over its body. It looked like it was trying to get its shell off at a fast pace. I watched in growing revulsion as a slightly smaller crab body broke through the back part of the shell and began to quickly force its way out of the larger shell, pulling and freeing its limbs from inside its old limbs as it went.

When it was done freeing itself from its old husk I watched in awe and horror as the husk healed and went back to stuffing its mouth with more food from the cube. The slightly smaller and newer Queiie also dug into the cube with savage abandon. Soon the other four Queiie finished molting... replicating... and the process continued.

"Holy cow they get up in numbers fast," I said as, in mere minutes, the five had quickly doubled and then quadrupled. "They are like onions," I remarked as they kept shedding layers to make slightly smaller crabs.

"Yes. It is only their behavior that is a saving grace for cosmic explorers. They can reproduce when they have food, at a rapid rate and you may notice that with each new addition their aggression and crazed behavior fades. They lose their team spirit and can be taken out individually with practice. If a hatchling tried to feed on them when there were just five, the odds are greatly stacked against the Leva. It is just like the difficulty ramps up the fewer there are. This keeps them alive and deadly when too many of them are harvested by the ancient Leva."

It was true. The more the numbering of the Queiie increased the more they seemed to slow down and spread out over the meal cube. Where they acted in concert before, as though they were a unit of crazed death, they now seemed to not care about their fellow crab brethren as they wandered in search of more tasty treats.

"Why aren't they swarming like what we saw in Silver's show?"

"That is due to the lights around us. They migrate between stars when they have a large enough colony. When there are enough I will tempt them in our direction by turning off the lights at the far end. The most developed and sated Queiie will adventure out and head towards us."

"So pretty much exactly like the game," I said as my eyes glazed over. I was supposed to teach Ess how to hunt these things? I was beginning to have misgivings about what my AI expected of me. I was under no illusion that I had minimal training or skill in the way of combat. Sure, I played my share of video games and even had a yellow belt in karate but none of that would matter when I had to go toe to toe with a space crab the same size as me. Well, their body was as wide as I was tall and their legs were three times my height but who was counting? I could use my cr like I had done in the game... but Ess wasn't capable of controlling her cr like I was so it wouldn't help her if I did that.

I needed something that was primal and physical. Something that Ess could use as a role model.

It didn't matter that I was made from an indestructible material, that wasn't the issue. It was how badly I would suck at teaching Ess to fend for herself. I simply wasn't skilled. The only time that I felt like I had ever been capable of fighting like I knew I would need to in this situation was the last time I had been possessed by my swarm. I had felt powerful, fast, and agile without limits. The problem, obviously, was my fear of losing myself in the insane bloodlust and rage that came with my swarm taking over.

"Remember back when I said that you can make your swarm whatever you want?" Nurse said as she felt my thoughts begin to diverge away from using my swarm and towards having George create a simulation for Ess to watch instead of the real me. She manifested herself on my arm and spoke aloud so that George could listen in on our conversation as well.

"Yes?"

"Well, I meant that in every way. The swarm is exactly what the Hive Mother created it to be. It is a savage killing and ever-spreading swarm of death. She, through generations and generations of instinctive layering, created her swarm just the way that she needed it to be to exist in our dimension. The Queens that the Hive Mother has in her service can slightly change their individual swarms to suit their needs. Since you are a Monarch, you can change your swarm in any way that you require, that includes removing the insane rage part of the swarm."

"Really? So, I could control my swarm, with all of its speed, power, and flexibility without having it drive me crazy with murderous rage?"

"The simple answer is yes. The long answer is that you will have to deprogram your swarm to suit your needs. You will have to enter the swarm and replace the rage programming with whatever state of mind you want it to use."

"Why do I feel that you have yet to tell me the hard part?"

"Because our minds are linked. Yes, the hard part is the fact that you will have to actually dive into your swarm and wrestle the base genetic instincts that the Hive Mother set in place into submission. You can do it slowly or quickly; it all depends on how deeply you submerge yourself into your swarm and how strong your willpower is against the multilayered genetic programming of the Hive Mother."

I stared at the little swarm on my arm and thought about her words. I glanced at George and when he noticed my gaze he simply shrugged back at me.

"I could do this part if you wanted me to Kevin. Tutor and I were not originally created with the ability to kill but ever since you changed us, I am sure that I could learn to teach Sublimis how to fend for herself just as we need to." He said, reminding me just how much I had changed them both. I didn't want to have to tell them to do this. Something about it just seemed wrong to me.

"No. I got this George." I said as I thought about my options. "I will try it my way first for a little bit and then when and if that fails I will see if Nurse and I can figure something out."

"As you wish Kevin. Just let me know when you are ready and I will lure one or two over for you to practice on." George said as I moved a little distance away to prepare myself.

If I was going to take on one of these things, I would need a weapon. Ess was blessed with having razor-sharp tentacle teeth so I knew that I could get away with wielding a sword. I just needed to get across how to take one of these things down without taking too much damage. If I failed at that and Ess ever had offspring I was sure that it would be my fault if they perished for not teaching her how to pass on knowledge of hunting without all the Tela and swarm armor that she possessed.

I knew I could use guns and projectile weapons to hunt these space crabs, just like I remember doing in Galaga, but I knew that it would be pointless if Ess was never able to do the same.

The problem was, I had no training with wielding a sword and would probably end up just looking like a klutz while I was swinging it around. I pulled some extra cr from the wall of the ship and fashioned a blade in my right hand. I started with a simple machete and quickly increased it to the size of a two-handed claymore the longer I considered the deadly reach of my foe.

A soft tickling feeling of humor and laughter sounded in my ears and originating from the top of my head where I had forgotten that Invicta had returned to take up residence.

"Kevin, would you mind if I help you with this?" Invicta asked as my mental image of her avatar became all cloudy and stormy with little trails of lightning passing through her being.

"Um... sure?" I said, not sure what she had in mind. I should have asked what she was going to do because the next thing I felt was too unexpected and sensual, making me blush from head to toe. It felt like Invicta was dressing me with herself as my space suit changed into a suit of armor all down the length of my body. Spikes formed out of my shoulder pads and on other various places on my body, ensuring that nothing would want to consider giving me a hug in the near future. The sword in my hand lengthened and broadened even further, reaching a length longer than my height, before serrated teeth extended and finished out the single-edged blade.

Even after I was thoroughly impressed with the improvements the armor's detail continued to improve and change. Scrollwork and details etched their way down from my head as Invicta added swirls and images of rearing Ancient Leva and lightning bolts all throughout the pieces of the armor and down the length of the blade. Through it all, her little bracelet remained on my wrist, contrasting with the armored glove in a way that made me smile.

"Now, forget your human body limitations. The length of the sword doesn't matter, you are strong enough to swing a sword as long as the ship if you needed. Sublimis will only get stronger as she grows so you don't need to worry about holding back for her sake." She said as I could swear that I felt her shifting against my body through the armor.

"True, but I don't want to use my gold cr in a way that Ess won't ever be able to duplicate. I will be willing my swarm to lower my power down to just above what I could do as a human, minus the strength part. Accuracy, speed, and cunning will be all on what I am capable of. My strength will be well above what any human could ever dream of swinging a weapon with, otherwise, I don't think I could even hurt the thing."

"As you wish," Invicta said with humor in her voice. "As for skills and movement, I will teach you. All you need to do is dance and fight to the feeling of my touch that will guide you how to move." She said as I felt the softest touch of what felt like her hand guiding my right wrist and arm. "Just like a dance." She said, her voice sounding softly right next to my right ear. I swear I could feel the softest breath as well against my ear, causing a spark to run along my spine.

Don't get me wrong, her attention was driving me crazy and I was really enjoying every sensation that I was currently feeling. Her touch felt like silk against my skin and I was thankful that she was being relatively tame in her movements, possibly due to her inexperience with human males. The image that popped into my head though that made me utter my next words was of the realization that I would be hacking through a giant space crab and I didn't want my first dance with Invicta to be marred with the memories of killing something.

"Thank you for the armor upgrades Invicta, but I will have to ask you to let me do this part on my own. Believe me, I would love to dance with you, just not in this way. I promise that I will dance with you though in the future. Just not while killing something."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Ok!" She replied happily before withdrawing her silky and sparky sensations back up to the top of my head, leaving the pristine and amazing armor as she had designed it.

Silently I let out a relieved breath once her presence had fully withdrawn. Her touch was making things hard... to concentrate on. Yes, concentrate, exactly.

I breathed deeply a few times, getting myself mentally ready to battle before I called out to George. "Ok, I am good to go. Just try not to laugh too loudly ok?"

"Bringing one over now." was all he said as the lights around us shifted and one single beam pierced out and shone on a lone Queiie that had migrated to a vacant food cube. It was drawn towards the light like a moth, and I watched as it followed and separated itself from the rest of the swarm of crabs in the distance. When it got closer I could see that several of its other eyes were tracking me as it got closer, I must have looked like a curious morsel of food for it to investigate.

The light led it closer to me before it suddenly cut off, leaving the Queiie with only one thing to focus on.

Me.

It quickly changed its trajectory and spread its long limbs out to its sides, intent on trying to catch me if I chose to flee. I could see its lower mouth as it moved its teeth and mouth orifice in anticipation of a quick human meal.

"You got this Kevin!" I said to myself as I moved to meet the advancing monster.

Over the next two hours, I would learn just how wrong I was and what exactly it felt like to be a human piñata.

The first swing met nothing but air as I learned an important fact: Just because the crab seemed calmer and less crazed, didn't mean that it couldn't still move like lightning. The next hundred or so swings all met the same end result, the Queiie was just too fast and focused for me to hit. I would swing at it, fly around and try to get at it from another angle, and it would track and keep on advancing on me like glue. It was a good thing that the space that George had created as the arena was so huge because I was forced to use it all to keep away from the Queiie.

It hit me back, repeatedly, after each of my swings, and seemed puzzled when I would continue to fight regardless of how hard it hit me and where it hit me. Sometimes I would manage to block or parry some of its hits, even managing to score rents into three of its long limbs when they came into contact with the sharp serrated edge of my sword. This superficial damage to its limbs only made it more cautious with its relentless pursuit and rapid attacks.

I would have given up but after a certain point, probably when Tutor and Ess showed up to observe, I became obsessed with improving myself and showing that I could, in fact, take down this space crab.

Because I wasn't flesh and blood, I didn't get tired or winded as I would have. I was limited only by the limits that I had instructed my swarm to place on me from the start. To limit how fast my body could move and how fast I could react.

Why did I let a space crab pummel me for two hours? Because I was stubborn and thought that if I tried hard enough that I could improve myself enough to at least get a good strike in.

I never did.

At least, not until I started to get frustrated and then angry.

Getting angry led me back to the memories of the swarm and the power that I had felt while in its embrace.

Things felt different this time though, probably because Nurse had fixed my mind and made me into a true Monarch. I was able to get angry, but it didn't result in the swarm taking over my body. The more the Queiie was able to pummel me in the face, without me being able to even hit it back, the angrier I got.

I could feel the red start to take over in my mind, this time it was all just from me and my frustrations though. I wanted so badly just to hit the thing that I ended up doing something irrational. I shoved my will and mind into my swarm, intent on gaining the power that I had felt before from it.

I only had a moment to hear Nurse scream in the distance "Not like that!" before darkness overtook my mind and I lost consciousness.

When I awoke, I found that I was not in my own body, nor even in my home dimension.