The trio made for an odd sight, two Glintish astronauts and a large spacesuit housing a human consciousness, as they stood in a room surrounded by other comatose Glints. Eli was scratching the dome of his 'Helmet' while Saule and Riyn bounced ideas around. Riyn was firmly in the camp of finding the owner of the ship, and forcing it to release them, whilst Saule just wanted to go.

Eli spoke up after a moment, raising his hand, "What if I make an explosive to blow open the hangar, and let you escape. I can stay behind to sabotage this ship to give you a good chance of escaping long enough for the Space Force to show up."

"How do you plan to make an explosive? We don't have any chemicals to use or even tools to make one." Riyn asked.

"That is almost certainly a death sentence for you Eli. I wouldn't be able to leave in good conscience knowing you would still be here," Saule added, "We haven't even seen your face yet and you are already offering to stay behind."

"Well I can fix one part of that right now," Eli said.

Flipping the visor up, the holographic projectors lining the helmet activated. What had once been Eli's organic face beamed at Riyn and Saule. Both of their eyes literally lit up as they saw a human's 'face' for the first time. He was pale skinned with brown hair, round face creased with laugh lines and short beard of a darker brown than his hair.

"Weren't you some sort of demon in the furnace, not a real human?" Riyn asked flatly, "All of the info channels called you a digital personality."

"Well I am, I just changed furnaces," Eli winked at him, then turned off the projectors leaving the empty helmet gazing back at Riyn, "But it was a back up plan. My data core got impaled by our mysterious kidnapper, so I have died already technically."

The two recoiled from him, ears flat and each took a step back.

"It's true then, you aren't actually real!" Saule exclaimed.

Eli snorted, "Wow that's rude. I am real, I'm just in a different state than when I started. That face I showed you was my real face, back when I was grade A human."

He paused with a hand up then continued, "I was part of an early effort to take human minds, scan them, then use those digitally reconstructed personalities to pilot early spacecraft. I was a test case to see what could be done with less than perfect materials." He finished darkly.

"If you aren't organic at all, do you have emotions or urges?" Riyn asked.

"Listen, I understand that I might be incredibly interesting and such, but we really need to get out of here." said Eli as he brushed past the two Glint and began to carefully pick up several of the injured Glint crew.

Saule and Riyn exchanged a look then each moved to get a crew member. Saule gingerly picked up Flik cautious of her more severe burns, while Riyn held Naytani. Eli held aloft the other four, two on each shoulder. He led the way to the hanger, navigating the dark rooms by recorded memory, and casting a light from his helmet. Several times Riyn or Saule would pause, hearing something Eli couldn't. Each time nothing would happen as they waited in the gloom.

Eventually they made it to the hangar, both Saule and Riyn beamed at each other when they saw the Mad Dash. The two set Flik and Naytani down and helped Eli set the others down.

Eli spoke, "So I'll get you two on the ship first, then ferry the others up to you. You will get the sleepers in vacuum suits or somewhere airtight and I'll get the explosive ready."

"How do you plan to get us up there, and make an explosive, you never told us that." Riyn asked, as he looked up at the ship.

"Let me find the boundary of where the gravity field ends and I'll show you," Eli responded.

As he stepped towards the ship, several dark spots on the suit opened like irises. A white glow started to gain intensity at the center of the openings. When Eli was about fifteen metres away from the ship, he hopped and remained floating in the air. Turning midair, he motioned for Saule and Riyn to jump to him.

"You two first, then I'll bring the rest to you."

———

Earlier

———

Silghen watched the altered beings and the Messenger make their way to the hangar. The computer had alerted him to the coming and goings of the medical bay. He wasn't worried about their motives or plans. The fact that the Messenger had migrated from ship body to suit explained his reckless attack, partially. However if the Messenger had escaped and made it here; it was very obvious that he had contacted the rest of his race.

The Tharg quivered as he tried to foresee how the natural born would react but gave up. They wouldn't be an issue if he could erase the Jeweller taint before they arrived. Even if they acted immediately upon the Messenger's plea they wouldn't arrive in time to stop Silghen, even using a space distortion field on the level of a Tharg drive.

Silently he watched as the human helped the glint get their wounded onto their ship, then make his way to the ruined husk of the humans old ship. The surveillance nodes marked a brief spike of power from it for several drips. Then the human exited with several bundles under one arm.

With great care the human began to place the bundles on the hangar door in a circular pattern with one large one at the center. Once that was completed he then went to the glint ship, most likely to check on the others. Silghen watched, uncaring, as the human cut the tethers to the ship, then made a strange squatting motion.

Just as the human did so, the bundles exploded and knocked the human flat. Shaking his head Silghen keyed the hangar door to open. That level of explosion wouldn't have even scratched it, and he would rather not have a group of explosive happy creatures on his ship. After all, he didn't need them any more. He had the bio data of the Glint and how to reverse the Jeweller's taint.