Chapter 1: Jacob and Sonji 2: The Web Ship

“Jacob! Get off your ass and help me right now! Jacob!”

Sonji's scream cut through Jacob's meditation with the intensity of a white-hot knife. The intricate webs of his mind was torn apart, the ends flailing around in his mind before he pulled them into a tight ball that represented his own spirit. Even with the shattered remains of his meditation, he felt the strands of his energy neatly pull back into a tight cat's ball of tight focus.

Slowly, his eyes opened and he looked out into the tight confines of the spaceship's cockpit. Around him, dented metal covered almost every surface, except where tape stretched over the scorched holes and melted plastic.

A faint nagging sensation rippled through him as he stretched out in the padded chair. He knew something was important for him, but in the process of waking up, he forgotten. The need to find out why, he called out for his companion.

“Sonji? Where are you, Sonji?”

She didn't answer, so Jacob pushed himself out of the console chair. It creaked painfully as metal scraped against metal; as he stood up, it rocked back listlessly. Stretching his head above him, he accidentally brushed against a tiny plastic button which promptly snapped and fell to the ground.

He looked down at it and blinked. When it didn't move, he padded out of the tiny confines into the main part of his ship. His bare feet slapped against the cold metal, but the discomfort never reached him as he peered into the main living area.

It was cramped, two walls filled with tables and cabinets while the back wall led into two rooms. One of them was the room that Sonji slept in while the other was used for storage. Ignoring the cold air swirling around him, he rapped on Sonji's door.

No answer.

He paused and wrapped on the other door, just in case. But, when she didn't answer, he opened up both doors and glanced inside. Her room was bare, with only a few personal effects. The storage held her rescue capsule, half disassembled.

“Sonji?”

When she didn't respond, he wandered back into the cockpit and sighed.

“Computer, where is she?”

Relays snapped as the computer whirred to life, “Visiting occupant left sensory range three standard hours ago.”

Jacob blinked, “Oh. Did she call for me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” he paused for a moment, “Was it important?”

More whirring, “Yes.”

He blinked again, “Oh dear.”

Moving quickly, he stepped through the storage bay to a sealed door at the back. A blinking red light indicated it was opened recently, but Jacob just slapped on the open button.

When nothing he happened, he pressed the button again. Still nothing. With a sigh, he looked up at the ceiling.

“Is the door broken?”

The computer strained for a moment, “Exit procedure mandates proper protection when entering a vacuum.”

“P-proper protection?”

“Spacesuit.”

Jacob blinked as a cabinet opened up next to the door. Inside it, a bulky spacesuit hung on a large hook.

“Oh.”

It was a ghost ship, almost seven kilometers in length. Its shields were barely functioning, a slither of energy to rippled along the entire length. Tiny sparkles of light burst along the surface were the shields caught specks of dust. The entire surface was covered in thick cables, some of them almost ten meters in width. At one end, three powerful rockets were cold and dead. Scattered across the ship were gaping holes and torn-apart sections. Massive rents cut almost completely through the ship, with fragments of a meteor still buried in the hull. Some sections were still lit, the hum of automatic machinery lost in the void of space.

Next to the ghost ship was a much smaller, heavily battered ship that was even older. One wing was barely attached, with metal plates holding it together. The single engine was still glowing faintly from the nuclear drives, but otherwise it was quiet.

The smaller ship's airlock opened and a bulky suit pushed out. It fumbled for a moment before following a steel cable toward a gaping opening leading into the ghost ship.

Sonji was in a great deal of trouble. Her panting fogged up her face mask even as the air conditioner inside her suit strained to clear it. Digital displays lined her vision, but she was struggling too much to breath to pay attention. The only one that mattered was the tiny display in the corner, telling her of the lack of pressure and breathable air outside her suit.

She passed a mirror and had a brief look of her armored body, a high-tech suit designed to take a sizable explosion and still survive. It held the impression of something sleek and powerful, which matched her own image of herself.

Behind her, something heavy vibrated through the metal floor. Her head snapped back, to stare at the dark tunnel behind her. The pounding of her heart almost drowned out her vision, but she stepped back as something moved in the darkness. Holding up her left wrist, she pointed at the darkness. A flare of bright blue light burst out from her finger, flooding down the hallway.

The hallway went fifteen meters, according to the readout on her faceplate, before it split into a T-intersection. Ragged remains of metal and rubble left a wandering path down the hall, to lead where she forced her way through a pile of grills and floor tiles.

Sonji was just about to lower her flashlight when one of the tiles shook. Gasping, she backed up as the grill violently vibrated again, then slid forward. It made no sound in the vacuum, but the vibrations of the heavy metal slamming into the ground were easily felt through the corroded surface. Her free hand dropped to a gun at her side, but halted a few inches away from the blinking warning light. Deciding to keep her last few rounds safe, she pulled her hand back.

Gulping hard, she watched as one of her attackers scurried through the opening, crawling along the ceiling with tiny vibrations of movement. A single crescent of blue light rotated to face her and she could feel a horrible sensation crawl up her spine. It moved forward slightly, black wires clinging to the metal grill along the ceiling.

Sonji could feel the discomfort growing along her spine as she pushed the beam of light higher, until it shined against the jet-black sphere of the creature's main body. Ten wires, each one smooth and flexible, easily curled into the ceiling's surface. The body itself was only four or five centimeters in width, with the legs being twice as long, but even the tiny form held a sense of menace in the blue eyes.

It slid forward slightly, the crescent light dulling slightly as it bobbed closer.

His black suit pounding into the heavy metal grill across the floor, Jacob continued to penetrate deeper into the ghost ship. His faceplate was lit up with readouts, but most of them were cryptic bars and colored symbols. On the right of his vision, a small note was literally tapped to the inside, to remind him that a green tank meant it was safe to breath.

Jacob barely saw any of the symbols as he peered into the darkness. In his hand, half forgotten was a flashlight, but the light was already flickering. Below him, the grill stretched across the hallway shook violently from the weight of his outfit. He carefully stepped around a hole torn in the floor, then around a larger whole that lead through a metal wall.

He barely gave the gaping opening a glance before stepping forward. His heavy suit lumbered further down the hallway, toward a large pile of pipes and cabinets. His fingers brushed against a heavy metal desk when a skittering vibration rippled through the floor. A small fragment of metal quivered for a moment, then bounced down to the floor. Jacob watched it with his slightly confused expression as it rolled down the hall and disappeared into the hole in the grill.

Just as he was turning back, he noticed a ridge of blue light behind him. The dark, tiny shape of a space spider clung to the ceiling for a moment, before it released its wires and dropped to the ground. Dust swirled up from the spider's impact but it already moving toward him quickly. The blue crescent of light lit up the hallway as it skittered along the floor on its ten wire legs.

He did nothing for a moment, then held out his hand. At the same time, his mind was gathering energy and he pushed at it. Halting violently, the spider creature lost its footing and rolled forward. One wire foot barely halted its movement and it slowly regained his feet.

His face was impassive, a blankness that matched the darkness in his mind as Jacob pushed even harder with his thoughts. He could feel the reaching out for the spider, squeezing around it as he sought the mind inside the shell.

The entire body of the creature shivered violently, wire legs spasming as his mind wrapped around it. He barely noticed the dust around him beginning to swirl up into a vortex, a physical sign of the psyche energy he was creating.

But, to Jacob's surprise, he couldn't find a mind. Instead of a dull intelligence or the blankness of a robot, there was something barely glimmering deep inside the black sphere of the spider. Frowning, his eyes began to shine with their own light, his attention finally drawn into reality as his hand tightened inside the suit.

His mind's image stretched out, threads of power and force twisting and stretching away from him to wrap around the black spider. The tiny legs spasmed even more, desperately clutching to the ground as he tried to find the glimmer of intelligence deep inside the black shell.

Then he found it.

Instead of a minor mind or conscious, he found just a thread stretched out into the darkness. With a faint growl, he snapped it. The thread of intelligence exploded, sending the ends snapping away in his mind.

In front of him, the black spider almost exploded in a massive frenzy of motion. The blue eye fading, he watched as the sphere threw itself against the walls and floors, bouncing around violently in its death throes. Fear and terror washed over him, intense emotions for such a tiny creature. With his mind open, he was almost assaulted by the intensity. Tears formed in his eyes as he could only watch.

It took the black spider almost a minute to die. In its frenzy, it managed to snap off its legs until only stub thrashed weakly at the ground. Jacob's face was soaked in tears, emotions raging through him as he struggled to find his own thoughts and mind.

Reaching his center, he managed to calm the terror and fear that echoed in his hear. With a shaking effort, he stepped forward and knelt down next to the creature. The black sphere was motionless, not even twitching. He reached down with a heavily gloved hand and tapped it. No sound came through the vacuum, but he already knew there was nothing living left inside.

Sonji jumped hard off the shell of a ruined sensory array in the center of the ghost ship's primary storage bay. The bay itself was huge, almost ten times larger than the tiny scout ship she was forced into, but the entire floor was covered in thousands of black spiders. A sea of black and glowing blue covered her vision as the tiny jets in her armor kicked her higher into the air, turning the jump into a glide across the jet-black sea.

Behind her, she could see the spiders swarming across the sensory array and soon it feel to the ground from the creature's weight. Sonji snapped her head back in front, to find a safe place to land from the creatures haunting her.

Spying a small access patch thirty meters off the ground, she directed the suit toward it. One of the readouts glowed yellow, she was almost out of fuel, but she hoped it was enough to reach the panel.

The readout was blood red as the last of the fuel gave out. With a scream, she threw everything she could into reaching the panel as her jump started to fall down. To her surprise, one finger caught the very edge of the panel. Wincing from the pain, she pulled herself up and twisted the handle around. It stuck for a moment, then gave with a rush. Clouds of air rushed past her as she found herself clinging to the door tightly. Straining her muscles, she forced herself into the rushing tunnel and pulled the door shut behind her. Bracing on the door frame, Sonji held the heavy metal door tightly as she twisted it back into position. It clicked as the automatic seal caught and she forced a pair of heavy bolts into place.

A high-pitched whine cut through the noises and Sonji realized she could hear again. Slowly turning, she fearfully looked around.

She was in a short hallway which ended in another door. This door was opened, hanging almost listlessly from a broken hinge. Dust and corrosion filled the room, from the tools on the floor to the spread of red and orange across the ceiling grill.

Sonji realized she was panting and forced herself to slow down her tortured lungs. Her suit felt confining, but there was too little between her and a vacuum to relax. Not to mention the sea of alien spiders trying to hunt her down. Being careful, she stepped through the hallway and gave the door a glance. It was a total loss, but she forced herself to move on.

At the far end of the tool room was another bulkhead, this one appearing to be in better shape. A tight grin on her face, she quickly stepped around the larger piles and made her way to the door. She was panting again by the time she reached it, but at least she didn't fall through the floor.

Tracing her blue armor-covered fingers along the edge, she was relieved to find it still rust-free and resalable. Using her flashlight, she peered into the next room, a storage bay of some sort.

She paused at the entrance to the storage room, looking between the tool room and the door leading into the spiders and the unknown room behind her. A faint, ever-present static of her communicator gave her no suggestions as she desperately tried to determine the safest place.

The thought of the spiders finally drove her to yank the door shut, closing her in the storage room with a heavy groan of metal on metal. The bulkhead sealed shut with a crunch and Sonji stepped back. Holding the flashing ahead of her, she began to explore the storage room, moving around stacks of metal and plastic boxes almost four meters in height.

Except for the hum of machinery, she could find no other moving creature or device. Her explorations found the hum, an atmosphere generator pumping breathable air into the room. Warning signs were plastered over the device, in a language at least a hundred years old.

Chuckling, she shook her head, “Jacob probably could read this.”

Her eyes glanced at the readouts on her faceplate, where a green light indicated that the air was safe to breath. Biological and viral scans were green, as was the chemical analysis. Below that, a yellow warning light indicated that her own oxygen supply was running low.

Another circuit of the room verified that she was trapped. Except for the door leading into the tool room, this was a dead-end. Snarling, she reached up and keyed in the release to her armor. The soft beeping grew louder as the front of the outfit split, letting cold air rush in against her sweat-soaked skin.

A soft moan of pleasure escaped her lips as she took a cautious breath. The air was metallic but not unpleasant. Except for the tiny clouds of fog every time she breathed, Sonji would survive.

She glanced around and noticed a smooth sphere of black resting on the floor, in a corner and covered in dust. Snarling, she watched the blue eye flicker into existence, but she already had her weapon out. The barrel of the gun flared for a moment and a jet of superheated plasma burst out, exploding the sphere. Half-sealing her suit again, she inspected the remains but found nothing larger than a fleck of metal.

Sonji made another round of the room, tearing open empty boxes in search of more spiders. She did find the air ducts in the room, but they were sealed and welding shut. Testing them, she found that they refused to move even with her power-assisted suit.

Convinced she was safe, she finally relaxed. Keying in her suit again, she opened it to let the cold air flood back inside. The icy air prickled her skin, but it felt good against her sweat-soaked shirt. Sitting down next to the atmosphere generator, she pulled out her communicated and focused on making it work. The next step would be to get in touch with Jacob.

If he ever woke up.

Somewhere deep inside the abandoned areas of the ship, something heavy forced its way through rubble of metal and plastic. One immense leg, almost three meters in length, pushed out of the darkness and set down heavily on the pitted surface. Beyond the shifting rubble was darkness, the pitch void of open space, but that did nothing for the immense spider that slowly pushed aside the rubble to stretch out over the hull of the ship. Ten legs, each a thick cable of metal, easily held it along the exposed surface of the ghost ship. The black sphere of the spider was almost three times the length of even Jacob in his bulky, outdated suit. Ten glowing eyes, each one the color of a forgotten azure sky, glared out into the darkness before it moved heavily toward one end of the ship, toward Sonji.

In the gaping hole of its passing, more glowing eyes flared into existence. Another set of immense spider legs reached out from the darkness, holding down tightly along the ragged opening before another spider, the same size as the first, squeezed out of the darkness and stretched out on the hull. It too barely paused before moving heavily toward the other end of the ship.

Jacob was still searching for his companion, the heavy boots of his suit shaking of metal dust into the air before they slid into the holes of the grill along the floor. His eyes were still red from the tears, but that did nothing for him as he rumbled along silent, black corridors.

It was along one dark hallway when the spiders found him again. Jacob leaned against the edge of the walls, panting from the effort to move the heavy outfit when he saw blue lights focused on him. Slowly, he looked up, past the readouts, toward the black spheres that clung to the ceiling, the walls, even the floor. A bead of sweat dripped down his face as his eyes scanned from one black sphere to another, staring into the hundreds of blue eyes that mutely stared back.

Then he began to cry.

“No, I can't… I can't…”

Jacob's voice trembled with fear and sorrow as the memories of the last spider haunted him. His right hand shook with the effort as he pushed himself back into a standing position. The spiders shifted silently, the vacuum between them preventing any noise, any scent from reaching each other.

With a great deal of effort, Jacob slowly turned around and walked the other direction, his desire not to fight the creatures stronger than the fear of leaving his back exposed to hundreds of the black sphere.

The spiders had no fear of him. As one, they marched forward, swarming over their bodies as the black carpet slid along every metal surface. The grill beneath Jacob's boots vibrated from their movements, but he refused to turn around, to fight the creatures who died so easily.

Forcing his boots to move faster, Jacob pounded the ground, retracing his route. He started to climb over a pile of plastic when he realized that he didn't remember the room he was in. Blinking, he paused and looked around, glancing at the black cloud of spiders that slowly filled the room. In his mind, he could feel their presence strongly, a single pounding heartbeat that seemed to match his own.

Frowning, Jacob concentrated on the heartbeat, ignoring the black spheres as they reached his feet. Wire-thin legs brushed against the heavy metal, then swarmed up it relentlessly. Jacob's mind was searching for an intelligence, but even he could feel the spiders crawling up the last defense against the painful pressure of the vacuum.

His mind pushed out furiously, pushed back against the tiny creatures with surprising strength. Even more surprising was their resistance, they barely shivered before swarming even faster along his body.

Jacob was about to panic when he finally caught a thicker line of presence, of a mind. Instead of snapping it, he latched on tightly and began to follow it, surprised that it soared back into the dark depths of an alien intelligence. In his mind's eye, he could feel the tight ball of his own mind following the tenuous line, sliding deeper into an intelligence not his own.

It was like crawling along a tight wire, but he could see more thin wires of thought stretched around him, like a web of mental energy. Each strand ended in one of the black spiders crawling over him, but he pushed them aside as he continued to follow the thread. Slowly, the strands formed more intricate webs, ones that reached to the very horizons of his own perceptions and beyond.

His mind strained to understand what he was seeing, pulling it into the patterns of webs that stretched out across the entire sky.

Jacob felt very small.

With careful effort, he reached down with his mind and wrapped his fingers around the strands that represented the spiders crawling over him. Instead of pushing each one away, he pulled the strands together and tugged them.

Even though he could barely feel it, the spiders halted their crawling on his body. Each one shivered at the same time, then started to slink back down, their metal legs vibrating along the outside of his suit. In a matter of moments, his body was fear, but the spiders stood there, a meter away and watching.

Along the fiber he was tracing, a powerful bolt of energy crackled down the length, from high above in the web. He watched it with growing fear and curiosity, but it moved too fast for him to respond. It crashed into him, with the force of ten thousand elephants.

A queen!

Stunned at the first experience of any creature speaking to his mind and power of the thoughts, Jacob found himself slipping away. The thread he was tracking fell away, leaving him to float in the mental void beneath the silken sky. Waves of energy crackled down the strands as the voice tried to find him again, the echoes of screaming finally muted by distance.

Where are you!?

Finally able to formulate his own thoughts, Jacob gathered up a response and threw it out. To his surprise, the respond crackled into the void until it touched one of the strands. Sliding up, it arced high into the web.

I am no queen.

A respond came bolting back down, Only queens may talk. You are a queen, but you are young.

Jacob felt brushes of personality vibrating along the response and he clung to them, trying to find a source of the strange mental communication. As he picked through the thought, his own perceptions began to change again. The sky pulled back and into itself, stretching far into the black voice of his mind before curling back up. Focusing on the thoughts and personality, he found patterns and systems.

Slowly, he understood it even more.

Above him, the sky became less of a sky, then a large web once again. Slowly, entire sections of the web folded into itself, forcing long legs of a spider. The thickest part of the web tightened into a ball, which ten immense spectral legs stretched out over his vision.

Looking up, he saw the spider made of pure consciousness and understood.

There is only one of you.

A response came back, There is only me… and you. We are queens.

Shaking his head, he concentrated again on giving the image before him more definition. The spider's form grew hazy for a moment, threatening to spread out into the sky again and he stopped.

I am no queen. I am male.

There is no male, only you and me. You are queen and you are young. I am queen and I am old.

Along with the response came the hint of memories stretching out centuries. Jacob tried to catch the images, but he was only left with the impression of age and of time. Thoughts of his own past were interrupted with the remembrance of the present.

Where is my companion?

He sent an image of Sonji along with the response. The spider's form grew fuzzy for a moment, but he found that he could bring it back into definition, to a sharp image of a spider made of webs. The spider's response quivered along the strands.

There is only me and you. We are queens. You speak of yourself, of your other bodies.

Impressions of being one with Sonji, sharing one mind, crashed into Jacob and he fought back.

She is not me, she is different.

A faint pause stretched out through the mental plane, as the spider stared at him with ten eyes of azure depths. It responded with a flick of one leg.

Then I will use this body, an image of Sonji flashed against him, to replace my own children.

Cooled down, Sonji stood up and stretched. Her armored suit hung around her waist, exposing the thin top to the ice-cold air. Hard nipples peaked out from the shirt and she looked down at them with a grin.

“Wish Jacob was here.”

Letting the emotions drift away, she pulled the armored suit back on and keyed in the seal code. A soft sucking noise prickled along her skin as the seams welded together, leaving her once again safe inside her armor.

“Of course, he's probably go back to meditating.”

She checked the charge on her weapon, depressed at the single charge remaining. Snarling, she jammed it back into the holster and checked the readouts along her faceplate. Almost all of them were green, including the suit's oxygen and internal power supply. The noise sensors were dim, only registering her own movements as she strode to the bulkhead. Pressing her hand against it, she keyed the external microphone to listen through the heavy metal.

There no sounds beyond the heavy metal door. Being cautious, she listened until the silence stretched out and her own breath began to annoy her. Clicking off the microphone, she wrapped both hands around the heavy metal lever and forced the door open.

Beyond the door, the tool room was untouched. Piles of rust and metal and plastic were everywhere, scattered around with a carelessness that even she could understand. Her eyes scanned the room, looking for another exit. To her surprise, she almost missed it as she started forward. But, a faint hint of light underneath a heavy-looking pile of plastic caught her eye. Carefully padding forward, she carefully avoiding the rusted places as she headed toward the hidden door.

As she placed her foot down on a solid-looking table, the sound of metal tearing away completely surprised her. The grill beneath her feet dissolved into rust almost instantly, leaving her a brief sensation of floating over a pitch-black hole before she plunged into the darkness.

Below, the void pressed against her as she felt pipes and metal walls rushing past her. Something caught her left leg painfully, right at the ankle, pinching it painfully through the armor while whipping her body hard around; the suit's internal safeties triggered, squeezing around her legs and arms to prevent damage. A pipe, solid and unresisting, slammed against her right shoulder. A burst of agony exploded in her vision, white stars that crawled around with horrible slowness. Just as her fall started, it ended with a crash, with her pinned leg holding her as firmly as the pipe along her shoulder. Another heavy object was ground along the entire length of her lower back, preventing her from falling further.

Sonji tried to blink away the white stars of the crash, but they refused to move away from her vision. More fragments of metal crashed into her arm, weighing her down heavily. Her free arm reached up, to push away the metal, but it skittered away. Horror began to creep up her spine as she blindly pushed at the metal. Wire legs crawled over the limb as they swarmed toward her lower leg and her shoulder.

Screaming, Sonji bucked hard against her confines, trying to yank her leg free. Pressure on both sides of her ankle increased as she felt more of the spiders landing on it. Her armor's servos whined with her efforts, but even the increased strength of the suit was inefficient as escape.

White stars slowly faded from her vision and she was able to see her predicament. Her leg was caught in a vertical piece of floor grill, but there was a long V-cut in the middle of it where her ankle was impaled in the middle. Spiders swarmed over the captured limb as she watched them weave their wire-like legs into the grill and pull tight. Still screaming, she yanked at her leg, but the spider's net was even stronger than her suit at full strength.

More movement caught her attention along her shoulder. It was more spiders, each one weaving their legs into each other as they formed a sheath along her entire right arm, pinning it to the immense steel pipe she was caught on. Sonji's yanked hard on her shoulder, trying to free it, but it barley moved. One of the black spiders landed on her hand and pulled it tightly and painfully against the steel pipe. Two more wove their legs together and she felt the suit bend slightly from the force of being bound. It only took a matter of seconds before the spider force had tightly captured her.

Her scream took on a shrill quality as she lashed out with her free arm and leg. Panicked, she grabbed at one of the spiders and threw its surprisingly heavy body away. The solid metal sound of it hitting the ground below her gave her a brief feeling of satisfaction and she reached for another. As her fingers wrapped around it, the wire legs suddenly wrapped around her palm. At the same time, three other spiders snapped forward and wrapped their own legs around her wrists and fingers. Their movements surprised her with the synchronization, as if they were planning on her, but she was already too panicked to do anything but flail her hand.

While one spider was heavy, four were almost impossible to move. Instead of flinging them off, Sonji's hand slid off her chest and she felt her shoulder strain as her arm was snapped straight down, pinned by gravity and the weight of the clinging spiders. A fifth spider slithered down her arm, weaving its legs into the others and increasing the weight. Servos screamed from her effort to pull her hand back up, but after a few seconds there was an electrical pop and the full weight of the spiders was placed on her already screaming shoulder.

The shrill scream of agony burst from her throat as she felt the intense sharp pain of her shoulder being dislocated from the weight. A wet pop and she felt it start to disconnect with tearing sensations that spiked up her spine. To her surprise, two of the spiders released their grip and fell away. Lightened, the pressure on her shoulder decreased immensely and she found it only a painful throbbing as the suit held her together. But, there was no chance she was using that arm until it was relocated.

Panting heavily, Sonji tried to gather her thoughts, testing her bounds with tiny jerks. The sheaths of black spiders refused to move, but they left her free leg to kick helplessly out into the void around her. Above her was the circle of light leading into the tool room; only five meters away, it feel like a light year from her captured position.

“Jacob! Jacob! Help me!”

Sonji screamed out, hoping her communicator finally words, but only a faint hiss of static tore that hope apart. Instead, she was forced to watch as spiders began to crawl over her body, moving on wire legs in an endless march of her doom. They crawled across her armored chest, then halted, weighing her down with their dense bodies but making no effort to enter the suit.

Then one of them reached out, one wire leg brushing against the control for her suit. Sonji's voice whispered out in horror as she shook her head.

“No… no, you can't know how.”

The leg pressed the first button to her code and a shiver of movement rippled through the spiders on her chest. It pressed the second code and Sonji was already screaming, tears running down her face. With disgusting clarity, she could hear the beeps of the controls as the spider entered the sixteen digits quickly.

At the sound of the suit's seals releasing, and cold air flooding into her suit, Sonji let loose a long wail of terror.

“No!”

The seams of the suit bulged out and the wire legs grabbed them, pulling them in a long yank that pulled open her suit clear down to her crotch. Ice cold air surrounded her exposed body as she felt fear prickling down her spine. The tank top and underwear felt horribly fragile against the combined force of the spiders pulling her suit even further apart.

Sonji started to pull her legs free from the suit, but wire legs snapped

There was a pause, then one spider began to shake. The azure eyes flickered for a moment, then faded. Sonji stared at them in shock as the wires slowly retracted into the body, leaving the sphere held against its fellow spiders. A seam appeared along the center, which slow grew as a puff of greenish gas flooded out of the body. The top half of the sphere parted even more along the seam and a flood of greenish juices suddenly burst out from the body. It splashed against her stomach, hot and slick, but Sonji's attention was focused on the sphere itself. A leg pushed out of the seam, white and fragile, then another. Three more curled out of the opening and pushed it open, giving Sonji the first look at her attacker's. It was a white sphere barely a centimeter across, with ten white tendrils radiating from the body. Each tendrils was almost two centimeters in length, miniature compared to the black spiders around it.

Ten azure eyes dully looked back at her before it reached out and pulled itself from its own black suit. Sonji's body began to shake as it crawled along the seam of her suit, then slid inside. It was hot and slick, a light weight that slid along her body. She could do nothing as it flopped against her bared stomach, sliding along as it reached out and grabbed her belly button. With a ripple of force, it pulled itself up and curled into the niche of her stomach.

Around her, more of the suits were opening up, splashing hot slime into her suit as white tendrils pulled themselves into the pools forming. Her body shook even harder as more of them poured in, crawling over her skin as the slime easily soaked her clothes. Faint tendrils pushed underneath the fabric, as the alien spiders started to crawl underneath.

She screamed and yanked at her arms and legs, trying to escape the safeties pressure, but she couldn't move. Her jerking halted the spiders for a moment, but they resumed their crawling as one after a second of her panic. Each alien was hot, hotter than her own body, and very slick. The elastic of her clothes did nothing to prevent them for pressing up against her breasts and inner thighs, exploring with tendrils.

A faint beeping indicated the safeties were about to release and Sonji prepared herself to yank away from the slithering creatures that slid over her. A faint hiss started to relax and she yanked hard on her legs. The metal grill shook violently, but an electrical popping arced through her suit. The smell of ozone and burnt slime flooded through the air and she felt her hope torn apart in an instance. The safeties refused to release her limbs as the alien spiders slid across her helpless body.

“Jacob!”

There was no response, but that didn't stop her from calling out. She strained to focused on her screaming, not to feel the hot slickness spreading out over her body, pooling at the entrance to the legs and arms as more of the delicate tendrils pushed themselves underneath her shirt. Every movement sent a slick tendril across her breasts. Their explorations found her nipples easily, hard from the cold air, but her squirming only eased their efforts to wrap their tendrils around the hard nubs and pull themselves up. The fabric of her top bulged out as the alien creatures swarm across her breasts, coating them in hot slickness.

Below, more tendrils were teasing at her inner thighs and labia. Sonji could feel them prying apart her nether lips, but her legs refused to close enough to stop the slickness. More heat stroked against her ass, worming their way between her tightly squeezed buttocks.

“No!”

Sonji thrashed in her confines, but the hundreds of aliens that now crawled over her body ignored her movements. They soaked her entire body in their efforts to explore it. To her horror, one of the creatures started to worm its body up between her buttocks. She could feel the tiny tendrils easily pushing into her tightly clenching asshole, slurping in three or four before pulling the body further in. She screamed at the feelings of violation as the hot slickness pushed against the opening, forcing it open as more tendrils pushed in. Every twitch of the small creature was enough o send a bolt of discomfort along her spine.

It took very little time for her lower opening to give way to the slick, wiggling intruder. With a disgusting pop, she felt it slide into her colon and stretch out its tendrils, pushing and crawling in heated slickness. The invader barley paused for a second before it started to crawl up further into her; a second alien spider pressed itself against her slicked entrance and easily slid inside.

Her entire body was shaking from the sensations and Sonji's panting barely drowned out the slurping sensations from across her entire body. The creatures were avoiding her mouth, as if they knew she would bite them if she could, but the rest of her skin was defenseless against their probing.

One of the spiders finally pushed up against her labia, shoving all ten tendrils deep into her sex and pulling itself in. Sonji screamed in violation, tears rolling down her face, as she felt it worm its way against the opening to her most private of spaces. The tendrils were already buried deep inside, caressing the flare of her inside before pulling itself in. Her lack of excitement was nothing to the tiny rapist as it used its own slime to force its way deeper, burrowing deeply into her sex as a second, then a third, began to crawl inside her.

Sonji's body thrashed violently in her confine, trying to force the creatures out by squeezing as tightly as possible, But, the soft bodies of the tiny spiders barely felt her inner walls as they flooded it with hot slime that dribbled out of her opens and splashed down onto the ground below. Sonji could feel her suit almost half full of hot slime and hundreds of tiny creatures swimming around and grabbing her. Around her, tiny spheres laid open like broken clams, mute reminders of the violation now burrowing deeper inside.

It felt like forever, being invaded by the aliens as more crawl into her opening, until it felt like they were swimming with life. More of the aliens clung to her breasts, piling over her slicked mounds until the fabric ripped. When she looked down, she could only see the white bodies throbbing over every centimeter of skin, except occasional flashes of slime-covered flesh.

Her tears were flowing strongly now, sobs ripping from her throat as she was forced to suffer from the creatures crawling over and inside her body. Every twitch, every slurp, every movement created fresh tears to pour down her cheeks.

A dreadful pounding vibrated the metal she was bound too. With fear in her eyes, she looked up so see something immense cover the hole above her. The sight of legs, each one as thick as her leg, pushing through the hole, then the huge spider pushed against the opening, was enough to send fresh screams boiling out of her mouth. She thrashed violently, her slick body sliding around in her suit uselessly and agitating the creatures buried inside her.

“No!”

Her screams dissolved into incoherent noise, a denial of anything so large poised above her. The terror of the immense spider was only relieved in part by the face it was too large to fit into the opening. It tried, however, pounding against the metal in slow, rhythmic strokes. Part of Sonji begged for it tear through, to fall down at crush her, but the spider appeared to be unwilling to kill her.

Instead, it did something far worse.

The ten azure eyes, each one the size of her fist, slowly flickered out. Sonji screamed even more violently as a seam appeared on the bottom edge of the spider's suit, a line that started to drip hot slime over her body. As the seam widened, it began to flood out, pouring onto her until it overfilled her suit. The tiny spider suits were washed away, but the tiny creatures continued to crawl across her body, squeezing tightly against her nipples, her clitoris, and even her air as they fought against the river of slime pouring over her.

Sonji caught a taste of the foul liquid, sputtering for breath as she fought against her confines. Spreading wide open, she saw the alien spider slowly push out of the immense sphere. It was identical to the tiny creatures, except the main body was almost three meters across and each leg was six. It pushed easily into the hole, six of the legs stretched out to grab the pipes and metal. Slowly, it lowered itself toward her, azure eyes blinking slowly.

She screamed, then screamed again as she felt the creatures inside her sex start to boil out. The tiny wiggling spiders deep insider her ass, however, refused to move as they continued to slick violation deeper into her body, cramping her insides in their efforts to move up. Hips jerked violently as the spiders came slurping out of her sex, sending more slime into her overfilling suit and onto the ground.

Above her, the larger spider came within a meter of her body and stopped. She could see the soft, pulsating skin of the main body as each of the eyes blinked in slow patterns. Gasping, she shook her head, trying to deny the image of the gigantic creature looming over her.

“No… no… no!”

It was deaf to her screams as it stretched even further out, pulling itself taut against the metal. The center of the creature began to bulge, slowly pulling apart to reveal a blood-red tendrils that slowly slithered out. Sonji's mind was threatening to black out as the last of the tiny creatures finally slurped out of her sex in time for the blood-red tendril to stretch down. The tip brushed against her breasts; it felt incredibly hot and dripped with heated slime.

The tip slowly moved up her cleavage, then down toward her sex. Sonji thrashed weakly, her body finally giving up after the constant struggle. The blood-red tendril easily passed over the pools of swarming white spiders and pressed down against her opening.

Sonji blinked back the tears, “No, please don't.”

With terrifying slowness, the blood-red tendril lowered itself between her legs and curled up until the heated tip was rubbing against her opening. She tried to pull her legs together, but one large tendril wrapped around it and pulled it apart; to her surprise, the strength in the tendril was even more than her almost dead suit could handle. When the servos began to whine, she forced herself to let her legs be pulled spread-eagle.

The heated tendril easily found the gaping, slime-slicked opening of her sex. With the same powerful force, it slowly began to penetrate her. Sonji tried to squeeze it out, but the irresistible force was too much as it pushed aside muscles and forced its way into her tight sex. Her labia and opening were stretched painfully apart as the thick member pushed, not wormed, deeply into her. Waves of heat rolled off the thick member as the tip pushed into her inner depths, shoving aside her inner walls almost painfully.

Then it froze.

Just as Sonji's body was adjusting to the thick tendril of the rapist, she caught movement above her. Something was pushing through the blood-red tendril, a thick rounded object slowly traveling down its length. Her body began to shake in terror again as she realized that it was egg of some sort. The roundish object was thicker than her fist, which did nothing to relieve the terror that burst inside her.

Sonji let loose a scream of terror as she was forced to watch the egg slowly moving down the length of the blood-red tendrils, then between her legs. It pressed against her labia, an thickness that would never penetrate the tiny opening. She could feel her body spasming in resistance, but the pressure built from the inside the tendril, forcing her lips and opening apart painfully. Slowly, it was forced inside, filling up the vaginal tunnel with screaming agony.

She could the tendril pushes even deeper into her body, the heated tip moving further up toward her womb. It barely brushed her cervix with the hardness of the egg finally popped into her sex, leaving behind the tortured relief of her abused opening.

The egg remained inside the hot tendril as it pushed against her innermost gate, her cervix. Burning hot slime was pouring out of her sex as she could feel it trying to worm its way deeper into her body. It pressed further in, pushing up against her inner walls until, to her horror, she felt a wet ripping deep inside her body. Sonji barely had a second to register the sensation when sharp pain slashed through her body, radiating from the violated opening. The blood-red tendril forced the egg deeper, past the torn cervix and into her womb.

Just as the egg was ejected from the slime-covered tendrils, Sonji saw another egg started the slow movement down the blood-red tendril. She whimpered in fear, her body unable to do anything in her confines. The pain radiated painfully from her sex, stretching to fill every part of her body in constant pain.

Your own children? How? You can't make her one of your own. Jacob could feel his confusion sliding along with his thoughts as he projected them outward. Faint power coursed through the mind spider's body before it responded with a complicated sensation.

I will place my eggs in the body, fill it with my young who will grow inside.

Jacob stood there in surprise for a moment then threw back his thoughts.

You can't kill her! I need her!

I won't kill the body, it must be alive for my children to eat.

What!?

A faint response, almost paternal and amused, You are young. You will understand when you grow up as a queen.

Along with the response came the mental image of Sonji's rape. Intense rage and anger flared up inside Jacob. His mental self started to glow with the force of the emotions and he reflexively threw them at the spider, You let Sonji free!

Even as he realized what he was doing, he could do nothing to stop the reddish burst of energy that exploded from his hands, forming an immense spike that pierced into the spider's mind. A scream of anger and pain vibrated through his mind, tearing at his defenses. There were no words needed for the anger and emotion that boiled back toward him as strands of webs were thrown toward him. Each one glowed with black force.

Throwing up his mental shields, Jacob still managed to take the brunt of the powerful emotions that cut into his mind itself. The pain was searing, slashing through his thoughts and tearing at the tight ball of his very core. He managed to pull the shield even tighter around it, a wet sphere that surrounded his core with glimmering power. When the second emotional blow slammed into him, this one even strong than the first, he managed to avoid the brunt of it and only felt a dull pain growing in the back of his head.

Focusing, he gathered up his anger at the creature who would kill his companion… his friend and he threw it. It formed another red spike, this one blood red and streaming black mist as it pierced deep into the spider's mind. Jacob could feel it cutting into the creature's mind, but there was too much for his attack to damage. The strands that came back, wrapping around his sphere-protected core were much stronger as the squeezed him with the force of ten thousand emotions.

The spider's form blurred under the attack and Jacob felt a glimmer of hope. Instead of sending another bolt of emotion, he focused on giving the spider more shape. Blurred edges grew sharper as he pictured the spider's form, as a web-filled spider. Waves of raw emotions crashed into him, as the spider drew him closer while squeezing with incredible force.

Using his skill at concentration, Jacob focused even harder, giving the spider a form that was almost real. Even the shadows and emotions rippled across its form as he forced the form into sharpness. With supreme effort, he resisted the emotional attacks as he started to give the body even more form, more definition. It grew sharper as it moved, the legs slowly pulling back into the core as the central stretched out. Surprise and shock rippled through the spider's mind as Jacob felt it trying to assert its own form.

What… what are you doing?

Anger rippled through his response, You will not kill her!

He redoubled his efforts to change the shape of the spider. Six of the legs pulled into the central form, leaving the final four to swell out into human-like legs and arms. The central body changed also, slowly gaining the form of a woman.

Emotional pressure increased on his shields as the spider attacked again. Black and red emotions swirled around him, squeezing and tearing at the shields as he focused on forcing the form on the creature. Azure eyes merged into two that glared at him from a very human face.

Jacob could feel his shields beginning to crack under the pressure. Delving deep into his personal core, he found a source of energy he only touched in deep meditation and pulled on it. Gold burst out from him, filling his core with power and dulling the pain. His shields glowed with the power as he drove his will even harder against the spider's mind, forcing it into the form of a naked woman.

He had no clue where the image came from, but it was no human he ever saw. Small breasts the color of the finest silk stood out from a svelte body. Her arms and legs were long, in faint memory of the spider legs, but they were also the same color of silk. Azure eyes, filled with hatred and pain, were set in the smooth face of a woman ten years his junior. The anger in the eyes faded with the emotional onslaught as the woman stared at herself in shock.

What did you do?

Anger still boiled in Jacob as he lashed out with his mind, You hurt my Sonji!

Shocked with her body, it did nothing to prevent her from throwing back a sharp emotion that exploded against his shields.

It is a body, to be used to grow young! Why are you protecting something that is not you?

She is my friend!

They were both screaming with their minds and the astral void between them shook with the power. She threw a tight emotion against his golden shields and shook them violently. With a growl, Jacob dipped deep into his personal energy and pulled out an attack glowing with golden fire. Throwing it against her, she screamed as the flames seared her flesh, turning it briefly black before it faded back into the silken white.

You will not hurt her!

He attacked her again, throwing golden flame after golden flame at the body until she screamed in a long wail that shook the void around them. Her thoughts grew briefly ragged, then a she threw back an emotion begging for mercy.

Please stop, you are hurting me. I will let your Sonji go.

Jacob halted his attack for a moment, looking at the woman in front of him. There were tears on her face, blue trails that dripped off her cheek. In their attacking, they managed to move closer until he could reach out and touch her.

You will free her?

She nodded, Yes, you may both go.

Jacob started to smile, then a thought drifted through his mind, And what of the others? What about the others you encounter after us? Will you use those bodies like you are using hers?

I will leave them alone.

Even as the words came across, Jacob could feel the falsehood simmering underneath. Images of her taking more to grow her children were faint ghosts hidden underneath images of being sincere. With a growl, he snapped out his arm, wrapping his fingers around her throat.

You lie!

Surprised at the intensity of his emotions, Jacob felt himself squeezing against the spider's delicate throat. The feel of her skin was soft as if it was made of the finest silk. She threw back her own thoughts.

That is what those animals are for! Breeding!

A solid wall of stubbornness started to form between them, but Jacob slashed it away with claws of golden fire.

They are not for you! They are living creatures with souls of their own!

She refused to listen, her mind fighting him as he felt the fear and terror building up inside her. Jacob fought against her, his hand around her throat as he fending off the flailing of her hands. The emotional waves burst around them, cutting into their minds even as their astral bodies fought.

With a burst of force and energy, Jacob managed to pin her with the very power of his mind.

You violated her, spider. You are hurting her in ways that you can't understand.

Confusion battered at him, confusion of why Jacob cared, of the significance of the living creature being violated on the physical world.

They are meat, nothing more. They have no mind, no purpose, they are only there to be eaten and to create young. Those creatures have nothing, nothing at all.

No, they are alive and you are hurting them.

Why do you care?

The response was smug and confused at the same time, the spider woman had nothing to frame any of his arguments again. Jacob thought furiously, realizing that she would never be able to understand anything he said and the next group she encountered would suffer the same fate as Sonji was right now. The memory of Sonji's rape flared up inside him and he briefly considered trying to kill the spider creature, but the image of the spider who died before cut it away. Centering himself, Jacob realized he would have to find a way without killing the spider creature, a way of teaching her why it was wrong.

He decided to do the same.

Before she could resist, he threw out a pinning force at the same time as he grabbed one leg with his free hand. The other hand squeezed tightly around the delicate throat, as his mind forced her to believe she was being strangled. Surprised by the force of his emotions and manipulations, the spider woman started to choke, fear filling her face as she thrashed to escape. Jacob's mind easily held her down as he released her throat to grab her other leg. The force of his mind replaced the pressure on the throat, choking it to an inch of her breath as he yanked apart her legs to expose the dusky opening to her sex. Her labia was tightly pressed, a virgin's opening.

She realized what he was doing, as she started to gather her emotions to attack. Jacob lunged forward, his body shaping itself to form a throbbing cock already dripping with excitement. Part of him, the dark violent part that he struggled constantly against, latched onto the sensations and magnified them, forcing his cock even harder and hotter until it felt like it would burst.

The hands around the spider's legs tightened even more, grinding the bones tightly as he pulled them apart as far as his arms would go. The bands of force from his mind wrapped around her throat, squeezing off the breath as he lunged forward, his cock aimed for her sex.

At the first feeling of thrusting into the burning hot depths of her sex, both Jacob and the spider woman screamed. A burst of red, of violated emotions and mental blood, splattered against them both as he rammed his entire length into her sex. His base slammed hard against her silken skin and he ground it hard against it.

Terror washed over him, as the spider was violated for the first time. Her mental body spasmed as he felt her control over the spiders start to dissolve. Unable to stop, he drew back his cock and slammed hard back into her, slapping his hips against her inner thighs with a blow that sent waves of emotions ripping into her.

In the ghost ship, a third egg was lodged inside her tortured opening when a violent shiver rippled through every spider violating her. Even the giant alien shook as it froze deep inside her. The first two eggs were firmly buried deep inside her womb.

She continued to scream for a moment, then paused as she realized nothing was moving against her.

“Jacob?”

Jacob was pounding inside the spider womb, thrusting his cock as hard as he could into the gaping opening with hard, fast strokes. His darkness, the violent part of his mind, forced him pound harder, to throw his own mind into the effort of truly violating the spider woman. He did so, lost in the sea of boiling emotions he fought so hard again.

As he thrust inside her, he felt his own conscious pushing inside her. When he drew out, he also pulled out part of her own mind, pulling it into his own. The flashes of memory, terror, and pain filled him and drove him even harder. As he rammed forward, he used the memories to find other places in the spider mind's shields, to penetrate even deeper.

Both the mind and the mental body were screaming now, the feeling of being raped almost exploding around them. In the saner part of his mind, he could feel her rape go even deeper, as she pulled into her memories and slashed at the threads that connected her to the spider drones.

The image of the dying spider from before crashed into Jacob. The sorrow cut through his darkness, blasting it aside and back into the depths of his mind. He pulled out of her, his cock dripping with her virgin's blood, and reached out for the tattered remains of the spiders. As he grabbed them, he felt the various drones screaming, a childlike cry for their mother.

She was curled up in a ball, sobbing even as she learned what it meant to be violated. Jacob felt the sorrow throbbing deep inside his heart, but the terror sparkling off the strands of webbing was enough for him to drive it down. Pulling on his quickly depleting energy, he attached himself to the spiders, giving them the control the drones needed to survive.

Sensory input from thousands of spiders, from the ones buried deep inside Sonji's intestines to the one shoving eggs inside her, flood through Jacob's mind. He screamed from the intensity of images, senses, and even the basic need to breath, to move, to survive that each that every drone, from the largest to the smallest, required.

Sonji was still trapped, but now she was surrounded by hundreds of spasming spiders. They fell off her body, landing on the ground in wet slaps of crushed flesh. Above her, the giant spider began to spasm itself, the azure eyes turning dark. The blood-red tendril was still caught inside her, however, and it spasmed violently inside her, crushing her insides with the violent snapping of the heated tip.

Jacob could feel the aliens hurting Sonji and he willed them to calm down. Thousands of voices, each one barely a child's, call out to him as one.

Father.

It took all of his effort to keep the aliens alive, much less moving. Every little thought was duplicated thousandfold by the creatures attempting to perform the action. He was forced to draw more and more of his energy and attention into moving them, to crawl off Sonji and back into their shells. The largest of the creatures was just as easy to move as the other, and he guided it back into its shell and closed it. The sensations of the suits filling back up with slime was almost a pleasure.

He realized that he was no longer paying attention to the spider mind. Part of him drew his attention back to her, but she was only lying there, standing at him with a mixture of hate, fear, and hesitation. Even directing a small part of his attention away left the spiders in a blind panic and he realized he could never leave as long as he controlled the spiders.

With a supreme effort, he held out some of the strands to the spider mind. She looked at them, her body trembled with the memory of rape and the lack of energy in her drawn face.

Why?

Jacob strained to respond, feeling hundreds of spiders start to die with every word, Because you are their mother, and… I think you understand now.

She shook her head, Why are you saving them?

He couldn't answer for a moment, as he strained to keep all of the aliens alive. A few of them were crushed to death and he could feel the sorrow rippling through the rest of the spiders as the last of suits sealed shut. Even as he struggled, he couldn't find enough energy to guide the spiders to release Sonji. Instead, he risked more dying to respond to her.

Because if you love them as much as I love Sonji, you wouldn't be able to bear their loss.

Looking at the offered strands, she hesitated for a moment, then gently took up the tattered remains. They fused with her skin again, sinking in with a grateful cry of pleasure vibrating through the silk. Jacob handed more to her, a handful at a time, until he could finally think without risking the spiders.

There was strange emotions in her voice, I could kill you.

Jacob felt the strain of keeping the aliens alive and nodded, Yes, you could.

Do you hate me?

No, I don't.

Do I hate you? There was confusion in her voice and Jacob shook his head.

Right now, you don't. But, later you will.

Why?

Because I hurt you in a way that will probably never heal.

And this feeling for… Sonji, is it what I feel for the… spiders?

She was using images and words from his own memories. With a start, he realized that he took some of her with him and left some of his own memories with the woman in front of him. He smiled.

I hope so.

Silence stretched across them and Jacob let her form blur slightly. Her own mind didn't attempt to reform it, leaving it as the naked woman before him.

I won't do this again.

Jacob shook his head, There is a time and place for everything, you need to find it yourself.

How will I know?

He grinned, Look inside yourself, I have a feeling that the answers are there now.

It was almost a standard hour later when Sonji keyed open the inner door to the airlock and stepped inside. A soft squishing noise filled the communicator and Jacob stood up from the cockpit chair. By the time he reached the storage room, she was already stripping out of her suit in a puddle of slime.

Sonji looked at him with relief, “It was you?”

Jacob wiped at the drying tears on his face and nodded slowly, “I'm sorry.”

She let loose a shuddering sigh, “I'll survive.”

Pausing for a moment, she continued, “They took the… eggs out of me, did you make them do that?”

He shook his head, “No, she did.”

“It hurt.”

More silence and he struggled for words. Nothing came, but Sonji dropped the suit on the ground.

“I'm going to sleep.”

She left for her room without another word and Jacob watched her. Another tear trailed down his cheek.

“I'm sorry.”

As the ship pulled away from the ghost ship, a group of five small and black spheres huddled tightly in a protected section underneath the right wing. Wire legs were intertwined together, holding them firmly against the hull as the rocket flared and the ship began to move forward.

From the five tiny minds, five silken strands stretched into the hull, to where Jacob was standing. He smiled briefly and wondered why the alien mind refused to let him return the five. His eyes glanced at the shut door leading into Sonji's room, where the sounds of sobbing and a shower were faintly heard. Tears still on his face, he turned back and entered commands into the computer.

Behind the ship, the ghost ship's drives started to flicker to life. Tiny rockets slowly turned the ship away from the tiny ship, toward the inky void of space.