Back in focus on Silas, I determine that he's still in the same location on the ship, even though he's moved several Miles per MiliLightspeed through space. Silas is still unconscious.

And the man who kidnapped him is still leering at him.

I examine the rest of the scene and note that Silas isn't just tied to a chair, but to a table. And a box of medical and mechanical tools are sitting next to it.

Surely, he's not planning on beginning the amputations in transit. He could damage the merchandise, let alone Silas, not that he is likely to care about the boy's wellbeing.

As the man turns on the buzz saw and watches it with an emotion I long ago categorized under completely different circumstances as glee, though, I begin a reassessment.

This is not the type of man who thinks far enough ahead about whether something will be damaged or not, only about getting what he wants immediately.

With this new assessment in place, I scrap my old plan attack and create a new one.

Silas's robotic arm shoots up and grabs the hand holding the buzz saw.

The man who captured Silas looks down at the arm, an expression Nicholas taught me means dumbstruck on his face, and then just plain dumb.

Before he can overcome himself enough to react, the arm twists, breaking his human wrist and causing the buzz saw to fall between him and the table Silas is lying on.

The man cries out in a guttural voice, but I don't let up. Using Silas's leg now, I kick up, hitting the man in the chest.

He falls over, and Silas's leg follows him before kicking him compulsively until he stops moving.

Lifting the leg back up, I decide the rest of the men can be taken care when Silas reanimates. Or when they dare to come close enough for me to clobber them.

For a moment, I envy Silas and his peaceful rest, and the way his body doesn't even need his mind conscious to defend itself. It must be something to be able to just turn off like that and not have to have three functions going on at the same time in order to fulfill one's purpose. Maybe I can just focus on this ceiling and pretend I can do the same; recharge; shut down; reboot-

Two sets of alarms going off on two different sets of ships reactivate my sense of duty.

My physical body determines that one of the alarms is going off on its ship. A warning about a coming solar storm even more violent than the one we encountered previously.

And the same alarm is sounding in my host ship.

"What do we do?" Nicholas asks, turning to Orion. "We can't sail headlong into a solar wave. That's practically suicide."

"But we can't just let them get away with one of our protectees either," Killa points out.

Orion glances between the two of them pensively before turning to where I'd normally be standing. "Alicia Ivy, analysis."

"Continue forging ahead," I answer through the ship speakers. "Rescue the boy."

"And the ship?" Nicholas asks. "You know, you?"

"I'll take care of it."

Orion nods, trusting me completely.

And I change the GPS settings on the ship my physical body is flying in preparation to prove that trust.

-Banner by @cannibalisticnecro

-Signature by @-krystalite