Evolutionary Liberator

Dustin opened his eyes a crack. He had already reverted to his human appearance, with the crystal scales just under the skin, and had feigned unconsciousness. There were some alien thugs guarding him, talking between themselves, not really paying much attention to him.

"My nest mate told me not to come back if we weren't successful."

"That's all? My nest mate said she would hunt me down and eat me."

"That's harsh. Think she'll do it?"

"Are you kidding? I'm surprised she hasn't already started looking for me. She's been wanting to eat me for the past three years, but I've managed to stay ahead of her. I rather like my legs, thank you."

"Mine hasn't developed cravings for flesh, yet. We don't think she's capable of eggs."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. There were squirms at your nest the last time I visited?"

"They were on loan from my brother, to see if it would encourage anything."

"What have you been feeding her?"

"The usual: ocean kelp, crustaceans, and plenty of chordata."

"No red meat? Maybe that's what you need to try?"

"When we get back, I'll get some, but like I said, she's not craving it."

Dustin focused on the bottom of the cage he was on, and had that side of his body start dissolving the material. They didn't notice.

"Think the reward will really do what the elders think it will?"

"We have no choice but to hope so. All of the females seem to think it will."

"I guess you're right."

As the floor of the cage gave way, Dustin used the ability he had gotten from the biological robots from the Josagn station, to float in place, so the thugs wouldn't notice, then sent a tendril down with an eye stalk, to see what was under him. They had the cage perched up on legs, and an electrical field ran under it, to set off an alarm if he managed to escape. Dustin sent his tendril along the underside of the cage to one of the legs, and studied the field around it. There was a gap, so insignificantly small, they probably didn't think he could escape through it.

Leaving a layer of cells over the entirety of his body, matching even his clothes in color, he proceeded to leave the cage. Making sure there were tiny tendrils of cells to prop the fake body up, so it didn't fall through the hole he had left, Dustin then turned his focus on burning a hole through the floor, directly under the leg where he was squeezing through the gap between the leg of the cage and the electric field.

It took a bit of time, but he finally managed to get his entire self through, into the gap in the floor, where they had wires and tubes running. Dustin wasn't sure how long he had before the fake he had left started to crumble, so he rushed through the floor space, until he reached an exterior wall, then followed it around the ship. His destination was the engine room.

These aliens had known every ability he had, well enough to counter them all. That meant the AI had managed to steal the information from his PED and nanobots, just like he had feared. Making his way through the tiny gaps in the ship, as a slime, using the energy detection of the space worm, Dustin thought about his options. This AI was more entrenched and capable then he had thought.

While he had no doubts, the AI was behind his kidnapping, he wondered why it still wanted his body, other than to study it. With all of the trouble he had caused it, why not just focus on killing him?

Then another thought hit him, and he stopped in his tracks. Every Uz'En they had collected over the years, had been given a PED and access to the nanobots. Would he return home to find everyone of his people dead? Would he really be alone then?

Fighting the horror of the possibility, he doubled down on his determination to destroy this AI. He had not spent the last fifteen years of his life trying to save his people only to lose them all now.

Reaching the power core of the ship, he paused to weigh his options. He had never done what he was about to do, so he steeled himself for failure. Sending a hair thin tendril into the computer mainframe of the ship, he searched for an access port, then plugged himself into it.

At first, nothing happened, as Dustin experimented with different signals and different evolutions, then suddenly he found his consciousness expanding, as he jacked into the ship's computer. Spreading his awareness out, Dustin was able to 'look' around. He was able to see through all of the cameras on the ship, peruse the data that was input into the hard drive, and then he saw the AI. It was lurking along the edges, watching everything that happened on the ship, yet it was oblivious to his presence. This wasn't the whole AI. He was able to see that it was only a small program, that was designed to observe, and not act, then when they came out of warp, it would relay everything back to the AI main program.

He fought the urge to destroy the small program, as it would only alert the AI to his presence in the network. At the moment he had an advantage. Once the ship came out of warp, he was going to have to act fast, before he lost that advantage.

Sending a signal that certain areas seemed to need maintenance, and would be down, he waited for the AI to withdraw from those areas so it wouldn't be cut off while they were taken down, then he cut them off, rather than take them down. These were small, insignificant areas, like the trash disposal, and water recyclers. Taking the space they took up, Dustin expanded his awareness, and increased his capabilities.

When the ship left warp, Dustin was ready. The moment the AI program reached out to contact the main AI, he tagged along, and was shocked to find the girth of the AI was far beyond anything he had ever imagined. It had tendrils spread through out the galaxy, that infiltrated every network that was advanced enough for it to contaminate. And then he touched on his hivemind, and he died a little. The AI had indeed infiltrated his home planet. It was just waiting to accept his body before pulling the plug. The signal was ready to be sent, and everyone of his people, and everyone who had a PED, would drop dead.