The Spider Queen

(Hydra Star System- Outer Regions)

(Unknown Asteroid Field)

"Help… stay away! STAY AWAY!" Drew screamed as he desperately grabbed the door of the cockpit and tried to keep it from moving.

His mech was missing both its upper and lower limbs and the barrier systems were now completely out of power.

Who could have expected the sudden ambush?

At first Drew was confident that he could deal with the fighter spaceships that mysteriously appeared but as their numbers increased…

He panicked.

He made one of the biggest mistakes in mech combat by turning his back to the enemies and not rerouting all available power to the shields.

It did not take long before the barrage of plasma fire damaged the central engine core and turned his mech into a floating pile of mechanical junk.

Now his mech was broken and surrounded by a fleet of enemies with plasma cannons aimed directly at his position.

If the situation was not already bad enough…

Drew had been forced to watch in horror as several humanoid figures wearing spacesuits flew towards his location.

It was hard to see their faces through the heavy polycarbonate helmets that they wore, but Drew could faintly observe that their eyes were bloodshot, and their movements were unnatural.

It may sound strange, but it was almost as though they were puppets dancing in the palm of someone's hand.

Each figure held a small handheld laser rifle in their palms which they pointed at the entrance to the cockpit.

With impressive precision they shot multiple beams of harsh light towards each corner of the cockpit door.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Drew quickly turned his body into a liquid form and slid down from his chair so that the shots passed harmlessly above his head.

He returned to his human appearance and could do little beside watch as his enemies slowly approached.

Maybe if he pleaded more… they wouldn't hurt him too badly?

Drew shrunk away in the far-left corner of the cockpit and stared at the door.

Quafes did not have internal organs, but Drew briefly had the illusion that his heart was beating frantically.

The first figure reached for the door and easily pulled it open.

The oxygen inside the room instantly escaped and Drew was forced to grab the nearest handle to prevent his body from flying out.

[Warning! Warning! Breach In The Cockpit!]

A cold mechanical voice rang out as a harsh red light blinked on and off. Drew raised one hand up in surrender, but the figure simply stood there.

"I give up!" Drew tried to shout but his voice did not travel through the vacuum of space.

He could see the other figures frozen in place outside of the cockpit.

Drew closed his eyes and waited for the end. This was not the way that he expected to die.

His entire life flashed before his eyes, and he was filled with endless regret. Why had he decided to become a cultivator?

Was it worth the risk? Absolutely not.

Drew curled his fingers up into a fist and decided to shift his appearance one last time.

His blonde hair turned light black, and his originally handsome face was now slightly disfigured. He had a hooked nose and one of his eyes were slightly bigger than the other.

This was the first human form that Drew had ever taken back when he was a young Quafes who did not know how to properly adjust his facial features.

It seemed like a fitting appearance to have at the end.

Drew waited for death but… nothing happened.

Seconds and then minutes passed without anything happening.

The Quafes boy tentatively opened his eyes and saw that all of his attackers were now completely motionless.

Huh? Was this some kind of trick? No… that didn't make sense… what was the point of tricking him now?

What Drew did not know at the time was that behind the helmet…

All the pirates were comatose.

Kohli's death had severed the mental bond between himself and his subordinates, but his mental control had been so deeply ingrained in their minds that they could not function without it.

Drew was still scared but as time continued to pass with no reaction, he summoned the last bit of courage left in his heart.

Drew hesitantly stretched out his foot by several feet and gently pushed the motionless figure out of the cockpit.

The figure in the spacesuit floated away and eventually slammed against a nearby asteroid.

Throughout the entire process, he did not react in even the slightest way.

Drew turned his attention to the fighter spaceships surrounding his position and saw that they were also strangely silent.

The Quafes boy did not understand what was happening and did not know if his mysterious attackers would suddenly start moving again.

It may seem useless, but Drew manipulated the mass on his arm and extended his limb to grab the floating metalloid door.

He placed it back in its original position and floated over to hold it in place. All he could do now was wait and hope that Professor Barrett would eventually find his position.

.

.

.

.

(Unnamed Planet)

(Headquarters of the Calypso Brotherhood)

Chunks of rock floated through space. What was once a planet was now nothing more than an apocalyptic wasteland.

The planet had been destroyed by the fleet of five destroyer class vessels surrounding it.

Every single person on the planet had been cooked alive or directly killed when a barrage of plasma fire bombarded the planet's surface.

The remaining fleet of pirate vessels were completely annihilated by the massive plasma cannons mounted on the top of the enormous starships.

Inside the leading starship was a special room. There was a single alien meditating quietly inside the room with several metalloid tubes attached to its body.

The alien's skin was dull greyish-white colour, and its figure was vaguely humanoid with a long spiky tail that extended from its rear.

Thousands of compound eyes were scattered across its flat face, and it seemed to be looking in multiple directions at once.

The alien had two mouths placed along the sides of its cheek and one of its mouths opened up to reveal rows upon rows of razer sharp teeth.

"The vessel has been killed… the conduit for the ancient one's power is now useless," the alien hoarsely spoke.

His voice echoed through the empty room and was transmitted to a similar looking alien standing in the command deck.

"All units will be given the order to immediately retreat," the alien leader growled in frustration as he slammed a webbed palm against the ground.

The space in front of the destroyer class spaceships rippled and soon an enormous portal appeared in the void.

The starships entered the portal one by one and soon the rift closed.

Not a single trace of the unknown alien race was left behind and as for their true purpose… it would remain a mystery.