Chapter 26

xX From the perspective of an alien Xx

The eidolon was nearing the human colony that he had been first to detect when they entered this system. The monitors were showing that the location he was approaching had the largest concentration of human/swarm hybrid soldiers. Perhaps he would finally be able to answer some of his questions that he was too scared to ask his superiors. He chose this route because his superiors would definitely kill him if he to ask them these questions, and the hybrids might not.

"Unidentified aircraft please resend your landing codes," a voice sounded over his communicator. "We will shoot you down if you do not resend. This is your final warning."

"Go ahead and shoot me down then. It won't do anything to me. I'll still make it to my target," he said, checking over his coordinates and preparing for them to shoot.

"What was that? Repeat what you just said. All we got was static," said the human voice.

The eidolon broke through the thin atmosphere of his homeworld. It wouldn't be long until he had his answers. A smile would have curled on his crystalline mouth, if he had one.

"Unidentified aircraft we have launched missiles at you! Send us your codes or they will kill you."

The eidolon was piloting a rather nimble fighter craft, easily capable of dodging the missiles but that would take time he knew he didn't have. The explosion completely destroyed the fighter. He remained unharmed, falling towards the ground.

"Sir, I've got a confirmed detonation. No life signs detected," came the human voice over the eidolon's earpiece.

Landing with a thud, the eidolon lay there for a moment, gathering his thoughts before climbing out of the hole he had made. A massive dome, protecting the human's inside, blocked his path. Brushing the dust off, he made his way towards an airlock.

Thrusting the tip of one of his crystals into the opening that would activate the door, nothing happened as it detected no human. Thinking for a moment, he finally thrust his hand along the edges of the door and forced it to open large enough for him to squeeze through. Alarms went off all around and sealed off the area as the air vented outside. The other doors were just as easy for the eidolon to tear through. Making his way past the point where the alarms screamed, he looked out over the buildings before him and an emergency door shut behind him.

"So, you're what the master calls a Crystalid?" a child asked from the roof of a building before him.

The eidolon turned to the child, scanning it. The child had shoulder length white hair, violet eyes and was entirely swarm, despite its human appearance. Reacting from the Crystalid programming, the eidolon swung out at the child, punching a hole into the building where it had been standing. Before he could pull his arm back, the child had climbed up onto his arm, using all four appendages like legs and was waving at him cheerily. Its little white dress had a few red splotches on it, but otherwise it was clean.

"How can you move that quickly?" the eidolon asked both surprised and appalled.

"Well, you do move really slowly. Master always said I was special and I don't think you're very used to fighting with your hands," the child answered, giggling.

The eidolon pulled its hand free of the building and held its arm up to see the child better.

"Why are you here?" the child questioned, still smiling.

"I came to question the leader of this swarm. You act differently from any other swarm in my records."

"Oh, then let me take you to Master." The child turned to run off, stopping when it remembered it was standing on the Crystalid's arm. "Uhm, can you put me down? I don't want to fall because it would still hurt."

"How about I carry you and you point in the direction I am supposed to go?" the eidolon said calming down.

"Alright," the child said, climbing up onto his shoulder and pointing down the street. "Master's that way."

Following the child's instructions and examining his surroundings, he saw that the inside of the dome was rather compact with hundreds of living spaces and workshops. Turning a corner, he was surprised to find himself facing a massive wall of iron-crystal. Water was being sprayed onto it in an effort to keep it from melting. Heat poured from the wall, and he could feel the child on his shoulder starting to leak.

The wall was obviously built a long time ago, and the liquid metal that was flowing out of pour spouts under it, were not what was causing the wall to sag and melt.

"Why are you not using more heat resistant crystals for the wall?" he asked.

"Uhm, when it was built, we didn't have much tungsten-crystal and what little we did have was used in the crucibles," said the child, wiping the leaking moisture off its face.

"Then, why has it not been improved?" the eidolon asked, then he noticed the makeshift patch Jim had added to the smokestack. "Like that part there?"

"The smokestacks were built before the other buildings. The ore needed to be processed before the buildings could be built."

"Of course, that makes sense. Now, where was your mas-" the eidolon was cut off by another alarm going off.

"Furnace three's starting to melt, even with the water! Everyone, clear the area!" someone roared over the intercom.

"Where is furnace three?" the eidolon asked.

"Over there," the child answered, pointing.

"Allow me to help. It'd be a shame if your master died of asphyxiation before I got a chance to talk with him." The eidolon set the child down and leapt over the numerous cooling troughs to the place where the wall was beginning to cave in. Tearing a hole into the melting part of the wall, he shaped it into a patch. Then, using the hose that was still running to cool the section, he placed the patch back over the hole, welding it into place exactly like Jim had done with the hangar door.

"That should hold for now but you really need some of the more heat resistant crystals."

A cheer went up among the numerous children in the area.

"What is it?" the eidolon asked looking around for what else was wrong.

"You fixed the wall! Master Jim had to use a door to fix the last hot spot!" a young child shouted from on top of a nearby building.

"So, he is the one who repaired that portion?" the eidolon asked pointing at where Jim had placed the door.

"Yeah, he's Master's right-hand man, whatever that means," the child from before shouted over the sound coming from the furnace.

The eidolon bent over and picked up the child. "Let's get going now. I don't think anything else will break while I'm here."

The child nodded pointing at a building in the distance where a young man with white hair was standing. "That's master."

The eidolon stepped around the cooling troughs and leaned in to study the boy.

xX Returning to Loyd's perspective Xx

"I'm told you wanted to talk?" Loyd asked, looking up at the tall crystal creature. A glow seemed to emanate from its interior.

"Yes, I wanted to know why you broadcast your plans to the galaxy. By doing so, you have lowered the total amount of biomass you could collect. There is no way you planned for that."

"Nope, I didn't expect you to come here, that's for sure. Humans aren't worth digesting for the little bit of biomass they offer. Plants, on the other hand, have large quantities of biomass and are relatively easy to process," Loyd explained in a way he thought the Crystalid would understand. He realized the plans the creature was talking about, must have been when his snake servant spoke with the camera crew.

"Biomass should still be biomass, regardless of where it comes from. You're not part swarm at all, are you? You have their genetic material but you're definitely something else entirely," the eidolon stood up placing the child on the ledge with Loyd.

"Looks like both of us got something wrong about each other. I thought you were all just mindless murder drones."

The eidolon responded, "That was my assumption about you as well. Your broadcast and then meeting you, has changed my mind about that though. The chancellor will still try to kill you."

"You seem like you're the only Crystalid that's nice." the child said.

Loyd laughed. "You wouldn't join my cause, would you? I plan to destroy the swarm and then I was going to deal with you guys." Loyd stopped for a moment. "Then I was going to make humanity leave this solar system."

The eidolon leaned back, shocked by what Loyd had just said. "I believe you have your priorities wrong. My race is the largest threat to you by far. As for the humans, I thought you were one."

"That's what I thought, too. Then I met my mom last week and everything I'd been told about my history got thrown in the trash." Loyd said, frustrated.

"The humans lied to you?"

Loyd scoffed. "You can say that again. I knew I was supposed to be the perfect pilot. They just lied about why."

"Why would they need to do that?"

"Humans are just programmed poorly, I guess. It doesn't really bother me because I plan on simply getting rid of the ones in this solar system." Loyd sighed. "But that leaves all the ones that fled to other places."

"The ship sensors detected an energy source entering the heliosphere at the edge of this system before I left. Could that be them?" the eidolon asked.

"Do you know how soon they'll arrive?" Loyd asked.

"Within one month. They didn't seem to be all that powerful based on their energy readings."

"Well, they should send a transmission to us when they realize we still exis-"

"LOYD! WE'VE GOT TROUBLE!" Charlette nearly slid past the door. She stared at the eidolon who stared back. "The outer colonies sent a mother ship and are gonna be here in a month… What's that?!"

"Charlette meet…" Loyd turned to the eidolon. "What's your name?"

"I don't have one. If I told you the closest thing I do have to a name, I'm not sure you could repeat it," the eidolon replied.

"Right. Then your new name's Tiny. Tiny meet Charlette, Charlette meet Tiny," Loyd joked. "And Tiny here just told me about the impending flood of humans. Which cuts our time frame shorter."

"Why are there so many young children working? Are there no adults left?" asked Tiny, looking around.