——— Hirst, Eli_———

"Go back to your ship gems, you'll be safer there where I can hide you from the Tharg" intoned the Guo'Saphyrn, it's branches moving quickly over terminals and screens, "But you automaton, you stay here until I know what you are and what damage you've done to my masterpiece."

Eli slouched, and said "I thought that wouldn't work. Saule, I'll meet you back at the ship once this is over, *don't leave* without me."

As he spoke, he quickly used his holo-emitters in his helmet to replicate a set of Glint ears, signaling deception. Eli hoped Saule got the hint to not actually go back to the ship.

Saule replied, "If you are sure Eli, we will wait on the ship for you. Riyn, Stuhkey, Yors, let's go make sure the others are still ok."

The four Glint left, Saule walked beside Riyn and whispered to him hurriedly. Yors and Stuhkey talked to each other and checked their equipment readings. All four though walked nervously and quickly.

"I will make this quick, as I'm sure that infernal Tharg is slithering its way here already. If you have influenced my Glint in anyway or altered them at all I will end your insignificant ignorant species." Rass Misiun threatened.

"I don't believe you can. If you were powerful enough to destroy a solar system, I doubt you would be sweating buckets over a single Tharg," Eli replied, as calmly as he could. "Why don't I help you with this situation, then I can help you negotiate with Humanity. The Glint already asked us to respect their autonomy when we discovered them."

"Is that so? They must have taken the self reliance part of the religion quite seriously. Bah! No distractions, my defenses have to be brought online from hibernation as fast as possible," said Rass Misiun, their limbs opened a map of a gargantuan facility.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Eli craned to see the map. He could just make out the scale of it by the distance between where the Tharg had crashed, the room that was probably where he and Rass were, and the size of the chamber the _Mad Dash_ was suspended in. It looked like the tharg had crashed roughly about thirty kilometres away. He would have time to make a plan.

———Hirst, Saule———

"We have to do something," Stuhkey lamented, "He may not have been with us for long but Eli gave us clues for space travel, and helped us escape that horrid ship."

"I know but what can we do? That said it was the Jeweller, and it destroyed the goads." replied Yors.

Riyn spoke up, "We should get tools from the ship and see if we can sabotage this place and rescue the Human in the chaos."

"That actually sounds like a good plan, except we have no idea what to destroy or if it would do anything," Saule mused, "But we can't just leave a team member behind. Riyn you double back and see if you can keep watch on Eli and the Jeweller, maybe see if you can find any mechanical panels on the way and open them up. Yors, Stuhkey, you two are with me. We'll grab Naytani amd round up any cutting torches or tools we need. Then we come back and cut as many cables and components as we can."

Riyn nodded and turned back towards the room where Eli was. The trio ran back to the ship as fast as they could. Saule couldn't keep his thoughts from straying to worst case scenarios of his crew dead and all three alien species attacking the planet. He didn't know what the Tharg or Guo'Saphyrn wanted, he only knew that the Humans wanted to be allies. That put helping Eli as his first priority in anything that happened.

At the brisk running pace they made it back to the Mad Dash in half the time it had taken them to meet the Jeweller. Naytani had gotten Flik situated in a mobile medical gurney, and Flik had woken up as well. The two were brought up to speed. Both of their eyes lit up with the implications of the story. Naytani helped gather up all the tools that could be used for destructive disassembly. Flik had Yors and Stuhkey move the gurney to the cockpit.

"If things go exceptionally bad out there I can blow up the Mad Dash, Naytani and I have been work-shopping some ideas for defenses in the future. But for now we have a program that will make the mass to energy generator start a cascading wave effect." Flik hurriedly explained.

Stuhkey asked, "Won't that destroy the entire planet?"

"No, the generator would only have enough initial energy to dust a thirty unit sphere around it, but that based on an average soil density of Plinth so.." Flik's dulled and her ears made several complicated movements, "Probably take a good chunk out of this place if it isn't fairly dense."

"I think we should find a different way to destroy this place if things go jilt down. Stuhkey where is Ozmac and Wensley?" said Yors.

"They're trying to make a bomb in hydroponics."