Riss sat in the dark listening to the rumble of the ship below him. He wasn't sure what he was feeling. He hadn't had much time to think since he had escaped from the council goons, but now that he was here, in the quiet and the dark, he had more than ample time to think and four cortical hemispheres to do it. That was honestly the one unfortunate thing about being unable to sleep, you had plenty of time to brood.

Starr clusters passed him outside the window rolling by with no sense of regularity, no pattern.

They had given him a rom when he boarded the ship, not that he had really needed one, but he appreciated their act of courtesy towards him. Humans were like that, they had some very strange conventions when it came to being courteous. He had done his best to study humans on a psychological level where Dr. Krill had studied them on a more physical one..

Dr. Krill was his hero after all.

Or one of them.

As far as humans went, they were a very social species, and so tended to have a lot of social conventions related to their social nature. When he boarded the ship he was properly greeted by the other humans and offered a nesting area of his own. Humans preferred to live together with other humans, in at east a pair but mostly three or four if not more. Some humans did prefer being solitary, but most of those still tended to live in the same vicinity as other people. However, when it came to their nesting grounds, humans liked to have their nests to themselves.

The only time humans shared a nest with anyone is whey they were a mate with that person, or if they were taking care of children, though it was the general convention to make sure that children had their own nest early on in life.

It would make sense then that the first thing they would offer him was a room.

Riss floated up against the window and sighed, staring out at a passing nebula.

The council, that is what his real problem was, that was his real danger.

He knew they weren't just going to give up.

Sure they gave up on Dr. Krill, but he wasn't really a threat to their way of life, he just wanted to go off and explore the universe and write papers about humans. It was an annoyance to the council sure, a slap in the face maybe, but the kind of information Riss had was dangerous information.

He had stolen evidence that the council was genetically and psychologically manipulating it's people to keep them in line including brainwashing and epigenetics.

Not to mention Riss had another theory.

No one he had ever spoken to had ever seen one of the council members change.

They were always the same Vrul.

Even the oldest Vrul he had ever talked to had never made mention of seeing the council change.

And if no one had ever seen them alive, than that meant the older generation had all been terminated before the council had. The council were the oldest Vrul in existence, but that was because they didn't generally let vrul live longer than 60 full rotations. Speaking with other doctors, Riss had determined that no one really knew what the lifespan of a Vrul was.

But based on the theory of diverging evolution between them and the Gibb, he knew they could live well over 100 years old.

The oldest Gib in existence was almost 600, so it begged the question.

Were Vrul long lived, and was the council actively trying to prevent that for their own ais.

Was it possible that the vrul who ruled over the city were the same Vrul that had ruled over the city for the last hundred years?'

It was a chilling thought process, and one that scared him immeasurably, even if he hadn't been prone to genetically modified anxiety and brainwashing, he would still have been worried and paranoid, anyone in his place would have.

These were dangerous thoughts to be thinking about a dangerous group of people, and he had no doubt he had not seen the end of the council.

His only hope was to make it to the Omen before someone cold make it to him.

He knew about the Kappas, knew that they would likely be sent after him. If not that then something worse.

***
Europa station was crawling with people, busy from one end to another with import and export ships bringing and taking goods from there and into the wider world beyond. Human mining operations were being moved from the asteroid belt and were preparing to move to the Proxima system to continue their work. Scientists close to the UN council had urged that tampering with the asteroid belt was a bad idea considering that it was one of the reasons that earth had survived so long. It acted as a sort of umbrella against other space debris that might have come to strike earth in the long run. Some argued that this umbrella was negligible, and with defenses on mars and the moon that there was no reason to stop mining operations.

Of course then there was the Interplanetary Geologic Protected Lands Committee which argued that the solar system should remain off limits to mining practices, aside from those needed on the surface of Europa, and Gas mining from the atmospheres of Jupiter Saturn Uranus and Neptune. They argued that everything else should fall under the protected lands act so as not to destroy the planetary ecosystem.

It had been an argument that dragged on for ages with big corporations displeased with the outcome as the geologic foundations won with an argument that these companies were easily rich enough to buy a warp gate and set up in some other uninhabited galaxy where it wouldn't matter so much.

In the end that was the case, and the mining operations were now staging their way to the next solar system over.

That left Europa station crawling with people and aliens of all shapes and sizes.

Tesraki management teams were helping to load cargo and overseeing the equipment, while Drev employees helped their human colleagues to carry and push large pallets into the ships. One or two Rundi came to oversee see customs transfers, with the occasional burg thrown in there, though they didn't generally tend to enjoy spending time with humans, as humans still had not gotten over the invasion of their homeworld by these creatures.

That was something that remained to be sorted.

Overhead in the main thoroughfare of Europa station, massive TV screens and projected holograms dominated the ceiling, buzzing with advertisements and flight information. Mostly they were ignored by the people bustling below, but on occasion an observer would glance up and read about the new and improved techno bar which was serving new and exotic alcohol from around the galaxy, and industry that had only boomed since finding it could make alcohol out of alien plants too.

Unlike in more seedy backwaters, no bodily augmentations were being offered, aside from UV tattoos or ones that could glow in the dark.

For the most part all of that was completely ignored.

Until a sudden warning alarm started going off, and all of the screens overhead began to flash bright red.

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

The entire station seemed to stop looking up in awe and shock as a GA broadcast took over the screens.

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

WARNING

Dangerous fugitive on the loose off Andromeda sector four.

There was a muttering from the crowd below.

A picture appeared next to the announcement, and the crowd was nearly in surprised uproar when they saw the picture of the shocked looking Vrul a sort of greyish in color with prismatic eyes that leaned towards yellow rather than brown.

WARNING

Dangerous fugitive lose off andromeda sector four. Please be on the look out for Dr. Riss.

Height, 3.5 feet.

Color Light grey with Yellow eyes

Warning subject is extremely unstable and extremely dangerous. Is known to be delusional and has attacked Vrul medical staff on sight. He may or may not have been infected with a contagious sporating disease. Please limit contact at all costs.

Warning:

Dr Riss is an extremely dangerous and delusional individual who may attempt to infect other creatures with contagious fungal disease, please be advised.

This has been a public service announcement.

-Vrul Council

***

Lt. Simon was sitting in her chair going over paperwork. Some days it felt like she was the only one on this ship that actually paid attention do the details. Sure the Tesraki had to because they were working with finance, but when it came to the reading and writing of important papers and documents, she felt like she was the only one doing anything. She did all of the admiral's paperwork, though she forced him to sign it himself seeing that forgery was illegal, and she would not involve herself in illegal activity.

She was to much of a professional for that.

With only half of her attention, she was attempting to listen to the GA senate meeting. She liked to keep abreast with what was happening in the galaxy. No one else on this ship knew what was going on, so, of course, she was going to be the one that had to do that too. Then again, its not like anyone made her do these things.

She chose to do them, and she took pride in her work.

She turned another page on the 48 page document she was looking over when there was a loud buzzing sound from just beside her. She looked up to see her screen had flashed red.

WARNING THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the figure.

Now this! This was important.

The admiral would want to know about the dangerous subject immediately. He would probably want to help the council mount a search or soemthing, goodness knows he had nothing else to do other than screw around on alien planets, touching things he shouldn't, and getting into trouble in ways that he certainly shouldn't be allowed to.

She stood from her chair and hurried from the room, up the hall and onto the bridge.

She poked her head inside to see Lord Avex sitting In the captain chair, though no one else but support bridge crew sat with him.

"What do you need." The little creature asked, turning a baleful glare on her.

"Where is the Admiral.'

"It's a Friday, where do you think?"

She stared blankly at her.

The Celzex sighed, "Down in the rec room."

She nodded and followed her feet down a few flights of stairs, she hated the elevator, and made her way onto the crew deck. She could hear the clattering of metal against metal and knew she probably should have guessed.

He would be sparring on the Drev.

Friday was "Fight Night"

She didn't exactly agree with it. Watching the crew beat each other up still made her feel anxious. The rules said that there was supposed to be no infighting among crew members, but they had told her it was just training, so she had to live with the reality of it for the past few months. They may have said it was just training, but every time she watched it didn't seem that they were pulling their punches, and someone got hurt on more than one occasion.

She stepped into the room to find krill and Dr. Katie playing a game of chess as they sat across from each other.

Dr Katie was frowning and Dr. Krill looked almost bored.

Everyone knew that Dr. krill was the undefeated master of chess.

It was almost unfair when you were a genius and had four separately operating cortical hemispheres to show for it. In the circle before her, she could see Kanan facing off against Sunny. She was relieved to see the Admiral sitting on the side of the circle acting as referee. The livid welt on his upper cheek told her that he had definitely been fighting, but at least she didn't have to watch.

Kanan swung at sunny, but she ducked under and hopped nimbly to the side.

Kanan was big, but sunny was fast and accurate.

Simon walked up to the admiral while the shouting around them continued.

She tapped on his shoulder diverting his energy from the match and he turned to look at her mechanical eye covered by the eyepatch he always liked to wear.

"Admiral, You might want to see this."

He frowned and turned himself away from the match resting his spear across his lap, "Go on."

She pulled up her hand and engaged the projection which shot up over her hand as a rotating image. The wanted poster for Dr. Riss.

The admiral's eyes narrowed for a moment and then went wide.

"No way."

He stood

"TIME OUT!"

The two Drev stopped turning to look at them, their chests heaving, the holes at the bases of their necks expanding and contracting with the huffing of their breathing.

Sunny set the but of her spear against the floor, "What's the problem."

He motioned them over and they clustered around, Dr, Katie and Krill as well.

Krill looked almost surprised.

Simon was nodding, "Should we offer our services, Admiral? I am sure the Vrul council-"

"Those conniving bastards!"

The group of them turned to look at Krill and Simon was surprised to see Admiral Vir was nodding, 'You too."

"This is clearly a coverup scheme." The little Dr announced

Simon frowned, "But."

"You think he's innocent."

Krill was nodding, "I do."

"But why would the council lie/" Simon cut in as the group turned to look at her.

Adam shook his head slightly, "Oh Simon, you sweet, sweet summer child. Though it is nice to finally not be the trusting and gullible one in the room. They are authoritarian politicians who have a history of oppressing the people that live under them. I guarantee you if Dr Riss is out there being hunted, it's because he has information that council doesn't want to get out,

***

Dr Riss exited the ship as Red waved to him from the doorway, "You think you can keep out of trouble from here Dr."

He wasn't so sure, "It's just navigating the universe, how hard can it be."

The human laughed and waved a hand, "You're funny little man."

He wasn't trying to be funny, he had actually been asking a legitimate question, but before he could say anything else the human was gone. He was left along with his things in the entrance to Andromeda central station, and was left to navigate his way up the hall and into the massive space. He wasn't sure where he was going, though he did his best to read the signs above him.

He was standing there reading one when a voice caught his attention from behind.

"You! Stop right there."

He turned slowly hoping beyond hope that wasn't for him.

And came face to face with to Massive Drev guards.