Evolutionary Liberator

"You just jumped us? We didn't warp?" asked his dad, as they floated near the planet he would claim as Haven.

"Don't you have eyes in that big head of yours, Kitteral?" asked Granny, grinning ear to ear, literally.

"I just can't understand it," he said, shaking his head.

Dustin's mother was clinging to him, with a huge grin on her face, not caring that he seemed perplexed. She hadn't let go of him since he woke up in the medical bay. And Dustin had noticed his father had a death grip on the back of her shirt.

He noted the strange readings from the sun, and made sure to keep a moon between them and the dangerous rays that were coming off of it. The nanobots were sent to destroy the mushrooms that had affected Olivia so bad in the virtual world, and to harvest materials from the surrounding planets and asteroids for the jump gate he would need to move the planet. The only thing he needed to check on, was who were currently living on the planet.

"Why are we here again?" asked Olivia.

"The sun looks to be destabilizing," noted Granny, turning her head to look at the readings on her monitor. She had been thrilled when Dustin explained it was hers, but he still didn't have her convinced that he knew so much because of the virtual world he had lived in for the past twenty years. She knew about chrono skimming, but had never heard of it manifesting in that manner.

"So, this is the planet that I moved to become the Uz'En homeworld. I named it Haven."

"That's a lame name," chuckled his father, but stopped when everyone turned to look at him. Even his mother was glaring up at him. "What?"

"Our son is about to move a planet to a new solar system, and give our race a home for the first time in forever, and you complain about the name?" complained his mother.

"The only problem I have, is that there are three military bases of the humans' on this planet, that I need to get off. I think I might just use the nanobots to jump them back to earth, and leave the Uz'En on the planet. I'll have to time it just right, because I don't want them to be sending an investigation team here, before we can jump the planet."

"That sounds like a good idea," said Granny. "With the readings that I'm getting from this sun, I wouldn't give it two hundred years before it blows up."

"How can you tell?" asked Kitteral.

"That's what Dustin said was going to happen," she said, shrugging at him.

He rolled his eyes.

Dustin made sure the nanobots took out the communications from the military bases, so they couldn't contact anyone off planet, then kept an eye on the construction of the jump gate. The hive mind was already built, and ready to go, complete with every anti-viral and anti-hacking trick he could muster.

His parents went to find something to eat in the kitchen, and Granny thought that was a fantastic idea, thought Dustin knew she was kind of scared of what he was doing, and was obviously looking for something else to focus on.

"So, you said we got together?" asked Olivia, once they were alone.

"Yep, and we had a kid, too."

"Only one?" she asked, surprised.

"You didn't like kids, and well, it's kind of a long story," he said, trying to get out of explaining everything. He should have known it wouldn't work.

"I want to know. It's not like we have anything else to do at the moment," she said, squashing his hopes of getting out of telling her what had happened.

"You were contaminated by a mushroom that affected your brain. I destroyed all of them, so that it doesn't happen again, but it caused you to not bond correctly to me, like Uz'En are supposed to. You left me five years after Kit was born, and we didn't get back together until right before I woke up."

"Which is why, when you saw me, you acted so strangely," she said, nodding in understanding.

He gaped at her, not believing she accepted it all so quickly.

"What? You steal me away from a planet, introduce me to alien technology that I never even thought possible, and taught me to do things I didn't know I could. Why shouldn't I believe I have an allergy to some alien mushrooms?"

He opened his mouth to correct her, then decided it wasn't worth it.

"So, we're going to have a boy first? I like the name Kit."

He whipped his head around to look at her, and saw her smiling at him. "So, you'll marry me?" he asked breathlessly. He hadn't managed to get up the nerve to actually ask her, and now, he didn't have to.

"Of course! It's not like I'm willing to go gallivanting across the galaxy with just anyone," she laughed. "But you have to show me how to regrow some organs first."

"They should already be regrown," he said with a frown. "When you changed back to this form, from the lizard form, any missing organs would have been replaced."

It was her turn to look startled. "That's handy."

"I don't think I want to travel all over the galaxy grabbing people, this time. It was pretty dangerous in the virtual world. Since no one has any way to block my nanobots at the moment, I think I'm just going to kidnap every Uz'En and bring them here. It should be much easier on me."

"Those poor people are going to be so traumatized. A swarm of mechanical bugs are going to descend on them, and steal them all away to some strange new planet. You should at least get things ready for them, so they aren't trying to camp in the woods."

"I've done this before. I fully intend to have the nanobots start building cities as soon as the planet is moved."

"Well, as long as you have this all figured out, I'll leave you to it."

"Good," he laughed. It wasn't like she had any other option. Besides, Kit was so good at fixing the mess he made when he kidnapped people, surely it couldn't go any other way. Right?