Drifter

“I don’t understand,” Thracia blurted out.

Eli laid it out for them, “The monk’s vows demand complete honesty. He helped a stowaway get aboard, the one who murdered Ka’darka. Even though he helped a killer, he still had to pay the other passenger’s fare.”

The monk’s mannerisms changed again, now he seemed passive, “Captain, you must think that I’m a hypocrite, or that my faith simply doesn’t make any sense if I cover the fare of a murderer. I will tell you this: it isn’t my place to kill, but that doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people are meant to fight and take lives, it is their destiny. And I can assure you, my companion has reason to kill.”

His mannerisms changed again, “My friend knows that he is in the right. We had a good reason to take care of Ka’darka. You see, we’re the stowaway. And yes, we did it. We waited till everyone was in their cabins. We disabled the cams. We killed Ka’darka and threw the weapon out of the airlock.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Eli asked.

“Of course!” Gami exclaimed, “He’s got a Drakulich colony in his brain.”

“Sounds like a parasite,” Eli observed.

Babur spoke, still in that radically altered manner, “Many see us as such. We are called Shikakuu. The monk saw our relationship as closer to symbiotic. When the opportunity to be the host of our hive mind was presented to him, he jumped at it. But it was more than that. He knew that helping us was the just thing to do. Ka’darka was a member of a group that seeks to exterminate our people.”

“And you eliminated the threat,” Gami stated.

“Yes. Our enemy is winning. There aren’t many of us left. This colony has dedicated itself to fighting back.”

“Eli, listen,” Gami said, “I’ve run into one of these beings before. In order for them to take such an extreme stance, they had to have purged their hive of all dissenters.”

“So, we aren’t just dealing with a terrorist, but also a nation that survived a civil war.”

“Exactly. And now we have to ask ourselves if it is right to turn him in or not. Was killing Ka’darka the right thing to do if he is trying to exterminate them?”

“Depends on whether or not he’s really a parasite or a symbiote. Hell, that might depend on the individual hive.”

Babur spoke, this time it was the monk himself, “Captain, please join us. You and Gami are warriors, and this ship would be a great asset to our cause.”

Several long moments passed before Eli replied, “I’m not gonna lie, you had me wondering for a sec there. But you killed someone on my ship without asking permission first, and that’s unacceptable. Gami, where can we find an honest government to take him for trial.”

“They are rare. On Garbo III they’ve managed to keep a small, representative government. It’s been a struggle, but they’ve made it work.”

The hive took over, “We won’t allow ourselves to be captured. There are too few of us and our mission is too important,” he showed them a device on his wrist, “Last night, we did more than remove that threat. We placed a bomb on the power core. It can be manually detonated, and it acts as a dead man’s switch as well. If you kill or incapacitate our gracious host, it will go off. Now, bring the ship out of hyperspace at the nearest settled system. Cavalier belongs to us now.”