FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 5

Rain fell over the city, a constant steady downpour that made the paved streets shine under the artificial lights above it. Even though it was early in the morning and the sun was rising, it was completely obscured under the dark clouds above it. Wind blew down the streets making the rain veer sideways as it fell, sheets of it splashing against the sides of buildings. A rare hovercraft made its way through the urban valley bordered on either side by buildings, its headlights stabbing through the gloom and casting exaggerated shadows about as it passed. A couple ran along, huddled close, a vast gamp held above their heads to keep the water off them. They swiftly ducked under a large awning before a closed store and laughed and gasped for breath there as they took a rest.

“By the Seven Makers, where did this come from?” asked Ahra’murr. He shook his head as he lowered the gamp to get the water out of his fur.

His companion looked to him and chuckled. She was an asishi, a lot taller than the ra’lai and easily out-massing him. “Did you even look at the news? The weather reports talked about this coming for the last two days. It’s a storm you dummy, they don’t just sneak up on us.” Tyryenna playfully shoved her companion’s head to the side with her big mitt of a hand.

“Well it did on me. Sorry if I don’t watch the weather like you do. It’s not my religion,” he joked. The ra’lai went up on the tips of his toes and kissed her. The pair embraced under the awning, ignoring the world around them for the few moments of bliss that they shared.

Another hovercraft passed them by, a large cargo carrier. Rain splashed off its roof as it moved along and its dull, sonorous hum echoed down the street. Once the vehicle was out of their view it revealed that a figure stood across from the awning and the lovers on the opposite side of the street. He stared at them in silence, rain falling upon him, half of him consumed by shadows. Just enough light fell on the shape that one of his eyes reflected the illumination back, making it glow a bright shade of amber.

Ahra’murr and Tyryenna stopped kissing when the ra’lai noticed the person staring at them. He nudged his love and they broke up. Both looked at him, the asishi chuckling.

“Do we have an admirer?” she asked the ra’lai.

“Feels more like a creeper if you ask me,” said Ahra’murr. He waited for a few moments longer, the figure still staring at him and his mate the entire time. He scowled and called out, “Hey, this isn’t a free show. Find someone else to stare at!”

“Oh come on, leave him alone. He’s soaking wet and probably miserable. Maybe he’s sick or lost or something.” She went to step out from under the awning, likely to cross the street, but the ra’lai put his hand on her shoulder and gently pulled her back to him. She didn’t resist. Their gazes met and he shook his head at her.

“Then he can be lost somewhere else too. It just bothers me, him staring at us like that. Hey! Knock it off!”

The shape continued to stare, barely even blinking.

Ahra’murr growled slightly in annoyance, reached up, and put his arm around Tyryenna’s shoulder, pulling her close to him again. “Come on, let’s go.” He popped open the gamp and raised it over them, tugging her along as he began to walk. The rain struck the gamp and cascaded off the sides of it as they moved out from the cover of the awning, a constant patter over their heads. He focused on looking ahead while she gave a glance back at the figure, who still stared at her even as she moved away.

The couple walked for a while in silence, paws soaking wet from the rain covered ground below, a chill running through them as a breeze blew past. She leaned into her ra’lai a little closer and he hugged back at her. Tyryenna glanced down at him. “Do you think we could have…”

“No. Enough of that. Come on, I just want to get home and out of the rain now. We had a long day and night today. Just put this behind us, go to bed together, and have a great sleep. Okay?” he asked.

“All right.” She nuzzled up against him and sighed contentedly.

The two of them stopped at a corner as a long public transport craft slowly passed by in front of them. They could see through the large windows of the vehicle that it was mostly empty. It was a weekend and no one was out at this time of the morning. The city was asleep.

The vehicle finished moving past.

Across the street, opposite the couple, stood the figure again. This time he was under a street light. They could see he was a male asishi and wore a dark jumpsuit which looked almost black from the water soaked into it. His fur was similarly matted and wet. Both of them picked up the scent though. It was too strong for them not to notice at so close a distance, even in the middle of the city with all its many scents surrounding them. They smelled blood.

“What the hells…?” muttered Ahra’murr.

The Rider crossed the street and started to walk towards them. Ahra’murr put his hand on his love’s shoulder and started to pull her back with him. A bad feeling ran through him. “Come on. We have to go. Let’s go… now…”

“Yeah… go,” she repeated, taking a few steps backwards then turning and moving with her ra’lai. The couple walked quickly and saw the Rider fading back behind them. He simply continued to walk after them, as if there was no rush or concern of reaching them. She kept glancing behind her and watched him get farther away until they turned a corner again, putting him out of her sight completely. She looked down at Ahra’murr, worry etched across her face. “Was that blood I smelled on him? What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know and don’t want to know. Something’s bad here, about him, whoever he was. I got a terrible feeling about all this. We need to get out of here and go home. Now.”

She nodded in agreement with him as they continued down the street, moving at a brisk pace. Her longer stride carried her faster so the ra’lai had to jog occasionally to keep up with his mate. The couple passed several blocks, only a few away from their apartment in the city. They began to relax when they no longer saw the figure following them anymore. The two looked to each other as they walked next to a large row of hedges that crested over the tops of both their heads. The shared a smile and chuckled. Ahra’murr shook his head slightly and said, “Look at us; running like a couple of scared children from a stranger. This is ridiculous.”

Tyryenna smirked a moment and agreed. “Yeah, we need to stop being worried about strangers so much. It’s not that bad of a neighborhood. But… that scent of blood from him. It was so strong. It kind of set me off.”

“Me too. Seven Makers, what if he was hurt? Or badly confused on top of it all? Hells… maybe we should go back and try to find him. What do you thi…”

His words were cut off as large hands shoved through the hedge and gripped the ra’lai’s shoulder and throat at the same time. With a vicious motion Ahra’murr was pulled through the hedge, leaves and twigs snapping all around him, and slammed to the muddy and grassy ground with a wet splash and heavy thump. He let out a low moan from the shocking impact and stared up at the Rider, the massive asishi glaring down at him, fangs fully bared. He felt terror grip him as the savage brute began to lunge down at him, teeth going for his throat. Just before he could bite down the hedge tore open once more and Tyryenna crashed into the Rider. The two tumbled off together to the side of the dazed ra’lai.

“Get off of him!” she snarled as she mounted the Rider when they came to a stop. She began to strike at him, hitting his face over and over with closed fists. His head snapped side to side as he didn’t make much effort at all to stop her. Female asishi were commonly bigger and stronger than males, even the larger males, so she had a decent advantage over him. However, she wasn’t used to fighting, having lived so urbanized a life since she was a child, and when the Rider suddenly jerked to the side he tossed her off his body. Surprised, she fell to the ground unable to stop her fall, the side of her head slamming hard against a big stone right near them and knocking her unconscious with a slight moan. The Rider immediately sat up then began to stand.

As the Rider rose Ahra’murr let out a cry of grief mixed with anger, holding the gamp in his hands. It was folded up now, like a terran umbrella could, and had a longer tip at the end of it. He thrust it forward at the Rider like a spear, the tip impaling the asishi and causing him to stumble back into a tree. Ahra’murr moved along with him, keeping the gamp shoved into his stomach. The Rider didn’t even make a sound or groan of pain. He gripped the gamp firmly, Ahra’murr staring in stunned silence at how this brute could still be acting so calmly and showing no sign that the injury even bothered him. The asishi tore the gamp from the ra’lai’s hands and tossed it to the side, blood pouring out of the hole in his stomach.

“Wh-what the hells… are…” stammered Ahra’murr. He took a shaky step back but it was too late. The hands shot forward and grabbed him by the throat. Thick fingers constricted around it, tighter and tighter. The ra’lai’s legs kicked and flailed wildly, his paws off the ground as the Rider picked him up, arms shaking. Ahra’murr desperately clawed and raked at the hands that held him, hoping they would release him if he hurt them enough. He couldn’t breathe. The pain was too intense. His vision faded and he began to black out even as the Rider crushed his throat in his hands. A sharp cracking and snapping sound came from the ra’lai as his head flopped over to the side on a terrible angle. The Rider released him, the body falling to the ground in a heap at his paws.

The Rider stood there a few silent moments, his breath coming out in a slight cloud before his mouth from the cool morning air. He glanced down at the hole in his stomach and stuck his finger inside it, touching and feeling about. It was deeper than he assumed at first. He would need medical attention for the host to not bleed out and die. That was not a viable option. It didn’t matter though. He was looking for a ‘change’ anyway. Keeping the same host here was not a benefit to him. He turned his head and looked down at the other asishi on the ground to his left. She would do. This asishi was a passable host. That one was even bigger and possibly stronger. It just didn’t know how to use its assets to its best advantage. The Rider knew how. It trained for over one and a half thousand cycles to know how to use a body better than the host could.

He stepped over to her, crouched down, and rolled her onto her stomach, keeping her neck fully exposed. The Rider laid down on his stomach right at her side, draping one arm across her back. He focused on the internal now, rummaging through the trillions of nerves in Yattik’s body that he was connected to. Within seconds he isolated what he was looking for. To humans, it was similar to something called the vagus nerve in their body. It controlled immune response, digestion, the heart rate of the body, and more. The Rider tapped into the nerve and stopped Yattik’s heart from beating a moment later. The muscle slowed then ceased working altogether. Blood slowly stopped pumping through the body. Everything began to shut down and die. It waited long enough until it felt the host’s brain stop working, autonomic body functions coming to an end. The Rider then severed its connection to the host and withdrew all its parasitic neuro-fibers back into its head.

The Rider exited the small incision it had made at the base of Yattik’s neck, cutting its way free once more with its tongue spike, since it had sealed over and partly healed. It pushed its way free, long slim tentacles gripping at the neck and dragging its three meter long body out completely. It was slim and shaped like a terran worm with a slightly bulbous head at the top of it surrounded by four oval, unblinking eyes. The blood soaked Rider immediately slithered along the body of Yattik, moving via peristalsis and assisted in climbing over clothes by its tentacles. It reached the shoulder and proceeded down along the arm until it had crossed over to Tyryenna’s body. It slithered along her until it arrived at its destination, the base of her neck where her spinal column contained access to her central nervous system.

A thirty centimeter long spike of hardened fibrocartilage slid out of its mouth, held firm by powerful muscles. Thick mucus dripped from it and most of the rest of the Rider’s body. It leaned close to her neck, rubbed its tentacles lightly against the spot where it prepared to make an incision and allowed the mucus to induce rapid hypoesthesia in that localized area. The numbness set in completely and would have prevented her from feeling it cutting her and moving along her even if she was conscious. It leaned its head close and ran the spike along her flesh under the fur, making a tiny guide line for it to use. The tentacles worked on parting the fur to keep the flesh exposed. Once it had its guide line the Rider began to cut the flesh open there, the spike moving in and out of the mouth in a blur like a needle on a sewing machine, making a rapid series of puncture wounds and cutting a half meter long incision on her neck. It pulled the new wound open and pushed its head inside. The Rider dug its way into her body, numbing her as it went, until the last bit of it had curled up inside her. The tentacles reached back and pulled the wound together firmly, holding it shut from the inside so it could heal over.

Its head burrowed a little deeper until it pushed at the spine and the central nerve cluster found therein. Thousands of tiny fibers extended from the mouth from around the spike and began to connect to Tyryenna’s nervous system. It felt its way through her, assumed control of her body completely, both necessary autonomic and conscious functions, linked into her senses, and made her belong to it. To the Rider the body was little more than a mech made of bone, blood, and meat, a tool and weapon for it to control to carry out its task. Tyryenna was still unconscious but when she did awake it wouldn’t matter. She was a passenger now and it was the driving force behind her body.

Her eyes slowly opened, blinked a few times, and glanced to the side to see the dead body of Yattik next to her. She pushed herself to her paws and brushed off some of the leaves and debris that clung to her. The clothes were dirty now, some mud stains, but no blood on her anymore and no critical injuries. This was a good body. The Rider rolled Yattik’s corpse over and fetched the map from his inner breast pocket. She tucked it into her pants. A few steps carried her over to the gamp where it laid on the ground. She picked it up and wiped the last bits of blood off the metal tip on the ra’lai’s body. The Rider stared at the gamp a moment, turning it left and right then pressed the button on the handle which made it spring open. She raised the gamp up over her head and turned in the direction the map had told her to go.

The Rider walked again, heading towards its destination, to find its Elder.

Chapter 6

Kendra paced back and forth before her work station, deep in thought. Both Imacha and Dr. Tahk sat a little off to the side eating food. It was lunch time but Kendra was too invested into the details of the annelid to be sidelined by something like a meal. It wasn’t the first time in her life she would skip lunch and far from the past. Her pacing halted when she walked into a large pink hand that was in her way. She stumbled back, surprised to see that Imacha had blocked her progress. She scowled up at him. “What the hell Imacha?”

“You’re going to dig a veritable trench in the countertop with your incessant pacing. Do cease and get something to eat Kendra. The data isn’t going away if you don’t focus on it. We’ve had it on hand for half a cycle. It will wait for you to have a meal for a half hour. Data is patient that way,” said the tordenchi in his usual rapid speech.

The arkatian to his side chuckled very softly but quickly filled his mouth with food when Kendra cast her baleful gaze on him. He looked about trying to seem totally innocent. Over the past week Dr. Tahk had found this tiny human to display a most impressively strong personality. She may have been less than two meters tall but seemed to loom vastly larger than him at times, especially when she raised her voice. Kendra turned her attention back to Imacha. She punched one of his fingers. Imacha’s eyes went wide and he raised his hand up and shook it.

“Ow, seriously?” he grumbled. “You do realize you’re ridiculously strong for a human female. That was uncalled for.”

“I work out, a lot. It occupied my time and kept my thoughts off… things. Right now though, I want to focus on those things; this annelid. I’m reading up on how it takes control of large organisms such as you and others like you. This is important Imacha. The most important thing there is about them. You know better than everyone except me on what that can do to the Union as a whole,” she snapped.

Imacha sucked on his finger a little then pulled it out. “Yes, I know. No need to bring up those details. Though as horrible as that ability is that this annelid possessed, and possibly the entire race might possess, it is not as great a threat as you are making it out to be.”

“They can take over the minds of you giant aliens!” she cried, trying to stress her belief of how important it was. “What is more dangerous than that? Dr. Tahk, please, back me up here.”

He glanced at Kendra as he ate. The arkatian kept chewing, pointed at his mouth, and made mumbling sounds. His eyes darted away in a different direction.

“Seriously? You’re like, over a hundred and fifty cycles old and you act like a child at times,” she growled at him.

“Kendra, will you at least listen to what I have to say?” asked Imacha.

“Fine. Explain to me how a species that can literally control the minds of you and other species your size is not a threat greater than any other that you’ve ever encountered before.”

“Come with me and let me go over the hows and whys of their ability to control us in detail. Please. Then I will show you why this ability, as frightening as it is, is not their greatest threat to the Union.”

Dr. Tahk gulped down the huge mouthful of food he had and hastily added in, “Oh, I’m coming along as well. I find this aspect of them most fascinating to be honest.” He wrapped up the rest of his lunch and quickly headed off to the other lab where work was being done on the annelid’s remains.

Imacha carefully picked up Kendra and held her cradled up to his slim chest, walking along slowly with her. They entered lab 23B a few moments later, which looked remarkably like lab 23A that Kendra and Imacha usually worked in save for a few different machines and the specimen vault. Calling it a vault was no exaggeration either as it was security sealed and reinforced to a degree that if a nuke struck the city and took out the entire science facility, the vault and the annelid stored inside it likely would be the only thing left behind. Imacha set her down near the vault and proceeded to open it up. He and Dr. Tahk were the only members of the lab currently cleared to access the vault. Kendra likely wasn’t getting that level of access any time soon. After watching the giant mouse punch in a twenty character code, have to place his eye before a retinal scanner, and finally use his ID card to swipe through a card reader on the side of the vault, the secured storage unit hissed open. Chilled air wafted out of the vault as well as some frosty mist. Imacha reached into the vault with both hands and carefully removed the annelid’s storage case. He set it down close to Kendra and sealed the vault once more.

Kendra moved over to the side of the coffin, which she still referred to it as despite Dr. Tahk’s protests, and used her yutri to remote access the module and open it up. The annelid was revealed to her once more, only her third time seeing it face to face again. She was getting better at it though. She didn’t flinch this time when it came into sight. Kendra pulled out a pair of thick, blue rubber gloves from her lab coat pocket and pulled them on. Imacha set up a holographic receptor over the annelid and activated the holo-system held inside the module that held it. A three dimensional replica of the alien appeared over the case, hovering a meter above and much larger than it so Imacha and Dr. Tahk could see more clearly.

“Let us begin,” said Imacha. He reached forward and tapped on the hologram, using his fingers to enlarge the view of the creature’s head, a simple spreading gesture. “Kendra, look at the specimen’s head. As you can see the fibrocartilaginous spike in its mouth is held in a highly secure ring of muscles which allow it to perform its task of cutting open the flesh of a target it chooses to infest. Surrounding that are approximately two dozen small nodules. You can see them here and here… here…” He proceeded to point out all of these spots on the alien, deep inside its mouth. Kendra looked at both the projection above her and back down at the alien in the tank clearly seeing what Imacha was pointing out. “These nodules hold a remarkable series of appendages in them, a unique adaptation that allows them to achieve this task of ‘mind control’ as you and a tiny handful of others that know about the annelid refer to it as. As you well know mind control or any other forms of supposed psychic abilities is the province of pure fiction. Extensive and exhaustive research into the possibility of such abilities was conducted over two hundred cycles ago with negative results across all measures and experiments. What the annelid does is not mind control, which is impossible, so much as a total usurping of control of the host body’s entire central nervous system from what we can tell. This allows it to use the body similar to a puppet, with strings attached to it.

“It achieves this act of puppetry by extending highly flexible tentacle like appendages, approximately one millimeter in width, from each of the nodules. These tentacles have hardened tips, almost like biological needles, capable of pushing their way into the central nervous system at the base of the neck. Once the tentacles reach the nerves they open up and extend micro-fibrous filaments that are basically extensions of their own highly complex nervous system and insert them into the nerves of the host. Each one of the tentacles holds on average two thousand of these pseudo-nerves which it then uses to link to the nervous system of the host, effectively becoming an integral part of the host body. The filaments it extends are approximately one micrometer in diameter, thinner than the normal width of say, the nerves found inside a lupari. We are unsure how the annelid Is able to determine which nerves out of the trillions that exist it is supposed to link into or how they do it so effectively and swiftly, but Dr. Tahk and I liken that simply to other forms of parasitic life forms. They are uniquely adapted by evolution to perform this task and perform it perfectly.”

“Are you sure this isn’t an uplifted ability the annelid granted themselves? Just another one out of the hundred and change they have spliced into their DNA?” asked Kendra.

Dr. Tahk responded to the question. “Though we cannot be one hundred percent certain, Imacha and I have decided that this is most likely a natural ability innate to the species. We agreed with the assessments of the events on RT-4522 that the annelids were controlling not only sapient races such as they did to your friends Hakurr and Neji, but also those feral beasts that you encountered on the planet. Seeing as they are the second of only two races ever seen so small, approximately human sized, we began to postulate. Either they came from a world like yours, where there were no immense scale life forms to contend with, or they originated on a world where they had to compete with giant creatures simply to survive on a day to day basis. If there were no giant creatures there would have been no need for that ability and it would have to be granted to them through uplifting. However, the degree of alterations to their brains, sensory capacity, control of literally tens of thousands of micro appendages, training to comprehend how to even do this, and more would have been extensive to the point of stretching credulity even for beings capable of manipulating genetics as they are. Sometimes the simplest of answers is best. They evolved this ability to help them survive. They instinctively know and feel or sense what must be linked into and how to control a host. It made them parasites that could use the giant threats of their world to their own advantage and let them rise to become the dominant race on the planet.”

“He likes Sherlock Holmes too,” said Imacha, a smug look of satisfaction on his face.

Kendra’s brow furrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “All right, so I’ll accept that this is an evolved ability of the species. It makes sense and keeps the ‘how’ they can do it and the ‘why’ they can do it both in line. It also means that they hijack control, sending out signals through the nerves that override the host’s brain’s commands. My question now is, is there any way for the host to break free on their own?”

“Unfortunately we have no way of knowing as of yet,” said Imacha. “The sad hypothesis as of now is… no. Adam and Hakurr were the closest of friends. They would have sacrificed their lives for each other. Yet, the annelid made Hakurr try and kill Adam despite any desires of Hakurr to the contrary. It was also clear that the host’s consciousness is still working perfectly well. The host is both alive and aware of everything going on with their body and even able to speak.”

“Though the annelid is likely able to prevent speech too if it wishes,” added in Dr. Tahk.

“Yes. That too. What is worse is that if the annelid has such perfect control of the host’s nervous system that it appears to have and can use the body as efficiently as it does, it likely can choose to kill the host in any of a hundred different ways by merely tampering with autonomic body functions. That means attempting to remove it from a host while the annelid is conscious is a death sentence for the host if it so wishes.”

Kendra shook her head slowly side to side. “Jesus fucking Christ. These things are a biological nightmare. So Imacha, I don’t see your case being made on how their ability to control a host isn’t the biggest threat your Union has ever faced.”

“Ah, yes, that. All right then. Yes, the annelid’s ability to control a host they inhabit as they do is clearly a danger to any of the larger scale races. We are certain they cannot control humans at all due to the size of your nervous system being roughly equivalent in size as theirs, but we are vulnerable… on a one to one basis. One alien worm controls one person. Take into account how many races there are in the Union at the current time please. How many?”

Kendra frowned for a moment and started mumbling under her breath, coming to a conclusion of, “A lot.”

“Thirteen,” said Imacha. He scowled at Kendra. “Including humans. For shame Kendra. Children are expected to know this before they ever start their educations.”

“Hey, I grew up on earth way before we realized we’re not alone in the galaxy. We got tossed into the soup and have been playing catch up ever since Integration began so pardon me for not remembering the name of every member race. There’s a lot of them.”

Imacha sighed. “Very well. So, excluding humans which the annelid cannot take as a host, there are twelve races. Each race has a Union wide population aggregate of no less than ten billion for the arkatians to the upper tally of thirty nine point seven billion for tordenchi.”

“That’s a mountain of mice,” quipped Kendra.

“Yes, quite so,” whispered Dr. Tahk who smiled immediately.

Imacha ignored their jabs for the moment. “Taking into account that the average population of each of the races falls into the twenty billion mark that means there would have to be approximately two hundred forty billion annelids in order to infect all the race members of all the Union races alone. This doesn’t take into account the nearly dozen plus more races of the Astejean Tripact, the Bala-Fel Concord, the Fringe polities, and the Rynar Collective. The likelihood of them having even close to the hundred billion mark for the race is very low in probability.”

“Based on what assumption?” asked Kendra.

“Based on the fact that no other race has run into them until now Kendra. We only did due to the Union sending ships deeper and deeper into the galactic rim over time to explore what is out there. It pointed out to you where we shouldn’t go either. It is a relatively small area of space. The further out from the core you go the less dense the star clusters are, the less probability of encountering stars with planets around them, and the less odds there are of finding worlds capable of sustaining life as we know it. If there were massive numbers of them they would have to have spread out farther and farther to maintain the stability of planetary populations versus ecosystem balance. We would have encountered them much sooner Kendra, but we didn’t. We have been space faring races for centuries, yet never ran into them. Their numbers are likely limited.”

“So how does that not make their ability to take over your mind… bodies, not as dangerous?” she asked.

“There simply aren’t enough to take over enough folks in the Union. Yes, they might get hold of specific hosts that can cause damage or problems by their ranks in society or command, but we have many measures that likely can detect these creatures in a person. Bio-scanners will detect foreign life forms such as them in a body. Lupari might be able to sense them in their own ways as well, their senses of smell being extremely keen. The biggest threat they pose to us is likely going to lay in whatever technological advances they may have over us Kendra.”

Kendra looked over at Dr. Tahk. He nodded his head. “I agree with Imacha. It is logically thought out and sound to me.”

She moved right to the side of the module the annelid lay within. For the first time she pushed her glove covered hand into the fluid and physically touched the dead alien. It was soft, the flesh rubbery but pliable. A shiver ran up and down her spine and she felt a moment of disgust. Both the aliens looking down at her noticed her discomfit. She closed her eyes, counted to ten aloud, and then removed her hand. Kendra wiped it off on the side of her lab coat until the glove was dry.

“Why… did you do that?” asked Imacha.

“I can’t be dominated by one of them; made to dance on strings like a puppet. I’ll never know what it feels like to have one crawling under my skin and sinking its filaments into my nerves. I’ll never be able to feel the horror of losing total control of my body and becoming a prisoner inside it. Helpless and only able to watch as it uses my own body to kill someone I love… or kill myself. It could have killed Neji fast, painless, any one of a hundred ways to induce death in a host you said Imacha. Yet, it chose to make her draw her own gun and shoot herself in the head. She knew what was happening and could do nothing to stop it,” said Kendra, a dark look across her face.

“I… never understood why it used that method,” said Imacha softly, “Once I realized it could just stop her heart.”

“Because it wanted her to feel terror before she died Imacha. Even if our Neji survived somehow, like we got to her and stopped it just before it did it and then got it out of her, she would have to live with the horror of that moment her entire life. If Adam lived he would have to survive reliving the fact that he killed his best friend in the world to save him. He’d see that in his dreams every single fucking night he tried to sleep. The same way I see Neji lying on the floor dead. The same way I see Hakurr dying in Adam’s arms every night. I see it coming for me every night in my dreams too Imacha and it can’t even take control of my body. But it has taken my mind. This fucking thing haunts my dreams every night and I still wake up screaming because I can’t get it out of my head that it did all that… killed the people I loved like family… just because we weren’t the same God damned race it was. It can’t even get into my body but it got into my head and if it can get into my head, imagine what the hell one of them could do by letting more see what can happen with them taking over someone else. Someone they care about or love. Seeing a ra’lai priest slaughter his own flock. Watching a mother kill their own child. Can you even begin to imagine what every person feels seeing that? The horror?

“Now, just imagine everyone realizing and coming to understand that one of those worms can do it to anyone it gets into. Anyone not human.” Kendra pointed to herself. Not us. “Not us. Only you. That it could turn the person you love most in the world into your murderer. Imacha, this ability they have isn’t dangerous because of how many people they can take over. It’s dangerous because of the psychological trauma and fear that will spread over the entire Union once people find out what these aliens are capable of. ‘Panic’ the councilmen said at my hearing. They wanted to prevent panic over a potentially hostile alien race. Tch… That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of it. These things are walking, heartless, psychological warfare. If it gets out that they can do what they can and a war comes along against them, I don’t want to even think about what’s going to happen to the collective psyche of the Union. The fear. The confusion. The paranoia. The Union thrives on unity and the belief that the person you see to your left and right are both willing to help you when you need it most. Let people see what the annelid can do and they stop trusting that person to the left and the right because they might not be who they look like any more. This ability does take over your mind Imacha… it does… it fucking does and I h-hate it… I hate them… fucking hate them… Neji… oh God…”

Kendra’s legs buckled as she started to sob uncontrollably. She sank down to the floor, leaning against the module the annelid lay in and buried her face in the crook of her arm. Her entire body shook and tears poured down her face. She slammed one fist against the side of the coffin over and over.

Imacha stared, wide-eyed, at Kendra. He went to speak but stopped, unable to find the words of comfort needed to console her, so he reached a big hand out and laid it at his friend’s side, slowly running a finger along her shoulder and arm. He felt how fragile she was. He saw how she trembled and how small she looked, even to him, the smallest race in the Union aside from humans. His gaze shifted to the annelid, the dead thing laying in the hybelex bath. For the first time Imacha wished it had lids on its eyes that they could have closed. It stared at him. He heard Dr. Tahk leave the lab, the door hissing shut behind him. Kendra’s sobs and shaking drew his attention back down to her and his heart ached. He felt sorrow more intense than he ever felt before and memories of his dead friends filled his mind.

His thoughts ran back to what Kendra just said about it. What it could do. How letting people know what they could do and seeing it happen one time, just once, could infect the collective consciousness of his entire precious Union.

Fear and uncertainty gripped Imacha tightly as he looked back at the annelid. Kendra was right. Their most dangerous ability was being able to take over the minds of anyone. Everyone.

Making them know the fear the annelid lived with every day of their eternal lives.

It was their ‘gift’ to a galaxy that no longer seemed safe.