Inside of the airlock, I waited patiently while a row of lights on the right side of the inner door counted down rapidly.

A heavy atmosphere, definitely not air, flooded in around me and left a thin cloudlike haze that hovered around my knee height. It seemed that either the occupants were really short or they required two different gases to breathe. The lower gas was thick and almost moved like water, causing ripples in the haze with every movement of my legs.

Once the inner airlock opened I walked through into a large rounded room that was dimly lit from above. All around the room, there were pods that looked similar to what George and Tutor had shown to me a while back when I dreamed of hosting a live-in crew on my ship. I counted at least thirty just in this front room.

Intense G life support pods.

Five of the pods were already open with their prior occupants having climbed out when they realized that their ship wasn’t being allowed to leave. The five were waiting tensely in various poses while they watched me. Each of them had a goopy sheen on their lanky bodies, courtesy of the gel that had held them just moments before. There was also a distinct and sharp metallic smell in the air. The smell was coming from the fluids that had slopped over the sides of the open pods as they climbed out.

Wait… I knew this alien race. They were all Blidda, the lean-bodied bat-like race that I had played the longest amount of time in the game.

“Stop right there parasite.” commanded the center member of the group as each member's four eyes tracked me intently. They were all naked to my eye and didn’t seem to have any form of rank on display so I had to guess that the one who spoke was at least the captain or security officer.

I didn’t listen and instead walked to within five feet of the one that had spoken, causing him to hiss through his thin lips and for his ears to lower in aggression.

Up close the metallic smell was even more pungent. My inspection of the room for oddities revealed a sturdy-looking large crate laying next to the pod of the one who had commanded me to stop. The storage crate was almost the same size as the pod, just sitting lower against the deck.

“That large crate is where the swarm observed the captain storing Meditati’s module right before they all climbed in their pods to leave.” Nurse said as I looked around at each of the Blidda in turn. I was having a hard time thinking of these five as evil but the decaying body of the trader outside kept jumping to the forefront of my thoughts and condemning them.

“I believe you have something that doesn’t belong to you,” I said as I pointed at the crate with my left hand. My movement must have startled the other four members because each of them drew what appeared to be weapons from behind their backs and trained their sights on various parts of my body.

'Hmm… touchy group.'

Their weapons looked very high-tech and had strange additions and protrusions which caught my attention. It almost looked like their weapons had finger-like claws sticking out of the front. These oddities further drew my interest in seeing what they were capable of. Well… normally I would have been thrilled to see their weapons in action but right now I had something to do and I was very pressed for time.

“What?” The captain said as his eyes glanced at the box before flicking back to me. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He said with his eyes slowly losing their dangerous glint and instead began changing to a pleased look.

“That is my personal courier crate that I purchased from your race. Legally, by Tela law, you can’t take it away from me or demand that I open it for you.” He said, seemingly relaxing even more.

‘Nurse, do you get the funny feeling that he expected someone else to come in here and to accuse him of something entirely different?’ I mentally asked as I tried to understand what was going on in front of me.

“Yeah… just give me a second, I am having your swarm inside this room check things out. Oh, that is really interesting. The box and the weapons are made from cr.”

‘What?! They have weapons made from cr?’

“Yup. The weapons are modified and don’t appear to be completely of Tela origin. They have used thin sheets and netting of cr and made net guns using normal technology. They could essentially capture a Tela with those weapons.” Nurse replied as the captain seemed to finally break character and choose to ignore me.

“See, what did I tell you all? It is just a retriever. Parasites walking in here and still thinking that they own the place. Kiv, turn on the field to kill this parasite and let's get out of here before its backup arrives.” The captain said to the Blidda located to his right. “And this time don’t apologize to it before it dies, it is a disgusting practice.” He said as he started to get back into his pod, fully turning away from me and putting me out of his mind.

The one I figured was named Kiv looked at me with sad eyes before she set aside her weapon and pushed a glowing button on the edge of the pod she was resting against.

The other three members of the crew seemed to take her pressing the button as a cue to stow their weapons and to get back into their pods. Their green and gray skin seemed to glow in the soft light as they moved smoothly with practiced ease.

‘Am I missing something? What the heck is going on here?’ I asked Nurse as the crew, except for the one known as Kiv, started to ignore me as I stood there watching them.

The one known as Kiv took out a little wand that resembled a scanning wand similar to the one that the shopkeeper had just used in front of me. It looked like she was getting ready to see if I had anything of value on me.

“I don’t know, maybe you should ask them? Perhaps they think that if they ignore you that you will go away?” She answered, clearly as puzzled as I was.

I was about to move and to say something when I noticed a change on the display in the hud of my helm.

-Warning! No connection to Tela power. Weaponized interference detected. Running on backup power.-

‘Oh snap! They have figured out a way to disrupt the connection between cr and their Tela counterparts.’ I thought to Nurse as I held still, pretending to be frozen in place as Kiv approached me with her scanner extended.

"Huh, then it is really fortunate that you aren't made up of Tela nanobots anymore. The swarm doesn't run on transmitted power."

Kiv wandered around me while muttering to her wand, making it take notes for her.

“Scientific note: This is the first time that I have witnessed a Tela in this form. It appears to have been trying to mimic Blidda physiology, at least with limb count and how it stands on two feet.” She said as she began scanning my fake suit.

“Personal note: Scanner is having unknown errors for some reason. Recommend recalibration upon arrival at the next station. Continue scan of Tela husk once complete."

“Turn on the field around the ship as well so we can be on our way. Our informants tell us that the scientist parasite is almost at the station.” The captain said after giving Kiv a few moments to pace around me with her scanner. She seemed to be puzzled and disturbed by something she was reading on her device so she didn’t immediately answer her captain’s order.

“Huh? Oh, yes, captain!” She said a moment later as she dashed towards her pod and began working the control panel.

I waited a second before speaking aloud to the five in front of me.

“Yeah, about that. That is not going to happen I am afraid.”

The looks of shock and even fear on the five faces was priceless when they heard me speak. To add to the hilarity of the image was the fact that four of the Blidda who were already in their pods looked like I had caught them in the middle of taking a private bath. The three that were not the captain or Kiv practically dove out of their pods and onto the floor in an attempt to get their hands on the weapons that they had stored before climbing inside.

If I had thought that the smell and stench of the goop was bad earlier, it was nothing compared to when these guys started flinging it everywhere in their mad rush to get to their weapons.

‘Any advice?’ I asked Nurse as I watched the three bring their weapons to bear on me. Kiv was frantically pressing buttons on her console in an attempt to figure out why the field hadn’t killed me and the captain was gripping the front edge of his pod in a death grip, his eyes wide as he watched his people getting ready to fire on me. I momentarily used my Prime Speed Control key so that I could have a little chat with Nurse in the moment before they all blasted their weapons at me.

From the look in the captain’s eyes, he looked like he was staring death in the eye. Perhaps he expected me to use some weapon on him before his people could fire or something.

“Mmm… nope. Just make sure to make some popcorn before you show this to Invicta in the future though. I am sure she would love to see how this all plays out.”

‘No, that is not what I meant. Should I dodge or block the bullets with the swarm?’ I asked.

“Oh! That, no, not at all. I have already checked their weapons and the end results will be funny to watch.” She answered.

‘Funny to watch? What is that supposed to mean?’ I asked as I turned off my Prime Speed Control key.

Three explosions rang out in my face followed belatedly by a fourth as Kiv managed to get her weapon as well. Everything had suddenly gone dark as far as my vision was concerned when the first rapidly expanding sheet had smacked into me and wrapped around my body like a bolas weapon. More explosions rang out as the crew circled me and rapidly secured me in tight layers of cr. The concept behind their weapons was sound. They had mixed single-layer sheets of cr with thin weighted chains that had little hooks to snag against any other cr chain that it came in contact with. Since they were working as a group, they could effectively make a burrito out of anyone that they caught. The only problem was that I could easily get away since I was still standing. All I would need to do would be to slide out of the open end...

“Kick him into the crate!” The captain shouted as I realized how they planned on permanently locking me away. If the box was perfectly sealed then there would be no way that a Tela Citizen would be able to ever escape once they closed the lid.

‘These guys are smart. Something tells me that this has been done before.’ I commented to Nurse as I raised my hands up, tearing through the mud grade cr without any problem. I wasn’t about to let anyone try to kick me into a box, let alone kick me in the back.

I looked over my shoulder once I cleared most of the sheets wrapped around my helm and right at the Blidda who was standing behind me.

“If you use that leg to kick me, it will be the last time you use it.” I said as I pointed at his raised foot. I could hear him swallow as he decided to return his foot to the deck.

“Now, where was I?” I asked as crewmates number two and three were late arriving at the party of realizing that what they were doing wasn’t going to work on me.

Their capture guns went off in their hands, wrapping up my head and torso again causing me to sigh in frustration. I activated my Bullet shield and went about removing the sheets on my body again. I heard more shots being fired and the captain yelling at the two to stand down. It seems that having your projectiles halted in midair was enough to cause him to become cautious.

Either that or the fact that my body now looked like it was made from swiss cheese as parts of me now orbited in circles around me.

‘Oh yeah, I had forgotten that I was running a little low on swarm at the moment.’ I thought as I looked down at and inside my body while tossing the shredded mud cr to the floor. Earlier I had directed my swarm to find the ship and had forgotten to summon them back to me. At the moment they were all hovering around the surface of the vessel, keeping it held in place.

“W-What are you?” the one known as Kiv asked before her captain butted in by shouting.

“Kiv, set the self-destruct now!”

“Ah, no, that won't be happening either,” I said as I mentally guided the mass of my swarm outside the vessel to come inside and to secure the five in place.

My hive struck the ship so fast, creating and sealing holes in the outer shell of the ship even before the atmosphere had a chance to explode outwards. The next instant revealed the roles of everyone to be reversed as the five crew members were wrapped head to toe in my gold cr. They all were held exactly as they had been standing in the instant that I had willed my swarm to attack. Well, almost exactly...Kiv’s hand had managed to move an inch closer to the self-destruct button that she had been ordered to press.

“To answer your question, I am not a Tela. I am a human and my name is Kevin.” I said calmly as I went over to the crate. The captain had been in the middle of pushing the crate closer so that he could open the lid when the other crew member would have been faithfully kicking me in the back and down inside the crate.

I ripped off the lid, simply tearing the sealed top off since I didn’t possess the DNA-coded authority to unlock and open it. Inside lay two objects. One was Meditati’s AI module and the other was a little sculpture smaller than my fist.

Before I did anything else I quickly picked up Meditati’s module and stored it inside my body for safekeeping.

The little sculpture I picked up and held as I stood to my full height. I would look at it in a moment.

“We are all doomed.” The captain said in despair.

“Wait! Sir! He says he isn’t Tela!”

“Like I would believe him. All parasites are scum.”

“Yes but sir, since when has a Tela ever ever ever said that they were anything but a Tela? They are always proud of being Tela and have never claimed to be anything else, no matter how they look.” Kiv said with determination.

“It doesn’t matter Kiv, the scientist will be here shortly to kill the resistance.” He said, his composure cracking.

Kiv, though being encased up to her eyeballs in cr, still had her wits about her which proved to me that she had a strong character.

“Human Kevin?” She asked, even though she couldn’t see me since her head was still turned towards finding the self-destruct button.

“Yes, Kiv?” I asked as I wondered what I should do now. I had found my way in between two sides of a war, something that I had no understanding of other than the fact that the Tela kept an iron rule over everything cr related. I had no way of knowing what the wars were like between the two species but I did understand what it felt like to know that the Tela had a planet-sized weapon existing in my own solar system.

“Will you accept the lives and service of all of those aboard this ship in exchange for letting us escape?”

“What kind of an offer is that?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“A fitting one.”

“I don’t see how it is so serious as all of that. I am just not ok with the murder of the Oppino’s Salvage guy.” I answered as I moved to stand in front of her.

“Murder? What murder? We paid Oppino handsomely for the unfused module and he immediately bought a new body to transfer to back on the station. He had been suffering from an old parasite injury.” She said with wide eyes.

“What? Then why was his ship being destroyed?”

“I don’t know? I heard him mutter something about never having to sift through Queiie feces ever again.”

“Feces? ... Feces?” I nearly shouted as I realized just what all that crap had been that I had been swimming in back on the asteroid.

“Ok, so there was no killing. I will verify this after I let you go.” I said as I released the five from the cr shell that I had been holding them in.

“Not sorry about your stupid box, next time don’t be such a douch-bag,” I said over my shoulder as I walked back towards the airlock and pressed the button to open it again.

When it opened my conscience poked me so I reached inside my backpack and tossed one of the billets back towards the frozen crew. “Here, take this in exchange for what you lost in payment to Oppino.”

I took one step before my conscience reminded me that I had taken two things from his box. I stopped to look at the little figurine that I had been holding in my hand.

It was a very detailed stone ant clutching a round empty space the size of a large marble that I had used to play with when I was a child. When I say it was holding “nothing” I mean absolutely nothing at all. It was as if it was holding a glass marble that was invisible because even though it looked like nothing was there, my finger touched a smooth surface of something invisible in its grip.

Without even thinking about it I reached into my bag and tossed the last of the billets that I had been carrying in my bag to the crew members.

“Here is payment for this as well,” I said, a little stunned.

I was stunned because of what Nurse had started screaming in my mind from the moment that I opened my hand to see what the figurine was.

“EatiteatiteatiteatiteatiteatiteatiteatitDEVOURIT!eatiteatiteatiteatiteatitCONSUME IT!!!”