Now, our chances were better than ever before. Ay had himself, that blonde woman, and that alien. I had Kira and myself. When we first met, I didn't have my stone yet and Layla was still on his side.

We wouldn't get a better chance than that.

Kira and I walked all the way back from where we came with her memory as our guide.

Unfortunately, we ran into an immediate problem. When we entered a former living cabin, we encountered forming blobs of Cherub. It learned how to deal with its energy problem.

Kira shot down the blobs with her blaster.

I contacted Crick. "Captain, you might need to eliminate more of the solar panels."

After a delay, Crick answered. "Are you still dealing with pandemic-affected enemies? Should I blow the station up and send you escape pods?"

"Not yet! We have to rescue an alien with precognitive abilities, Ay can't be allowed to lay his hands on it!"

Another delay. "I might be able to destroy more panels. However, judging from my observations, your enemy has rich reserves of energy stored in the station. It is highly unlikely that it will run out of fuel before you do."

"What's taking so long?" Kira asked.

While I was busy talking, she shot blast after blast at the reforming blobs. All four walls around us showed signs of melting. Cherub knew we were here and sent as many blobs as possible in our direction.

"Find a weak spot so that we can tear through!" I said.

"That's what I'm trying!"

All of a sudden, a bomb impacted next to us. It tore apart the blobs near the left wall and fried its tissue through dangerous radiation.

"C'mon!" said a robotic voice. It came from a red-and-purple hovering spider-drone. "I know it's me you really want, isn't it?"

All remaining blobs moved in its direction. Good to see that Layla was at least willing to help against Cherub, even if not against Ay.

Kira and I took the opportunity to run into the room that was now free. It turned out to be the machine room. Still the same cabinet-sized nanofactories as before, still the same piles of debris.

On closer inspection, it might have been a new room. The previous room contained nothing but decay and death, nothing but debris, rust-streaked factories, and the occasional pipe that fell off.

This one, however, housed an object that proved to be an exception to the rule. It was an enormous sepia pillar that extended into the air like a satellite mast. Style-wise, it reminded me of the Seizers' monoliths with its smooth surface and imposing aura. Was it a Primogenitor computer? If humans had boxes and Seizers had monoliths, maybe those guys had pillars?

Two familiar faces stepped out from behind the pillar. Ay and that accomplice of his. Their Primogenitor preferred to stay behind the pillar.

I couldn't help but notice a new terminal Ay held in his hand that he didn't have before. Was this the Cipher? Did we already come too late?

Kira had a finger on her blaster.

"Give back Precog," I said. "Now!"

"Precog?" the blonde woman asked. "You really need to stop giving nicknames."

"I am disappointed by your banter," Ay said, "but at least you seem to have grown stronger by now."

"Yeah, and I'll kick your ass in a fight if you've got the balls."

"I have to decline, but thanks for the offer."

Kira had enough and aimed her blaster. Much like us, however, the two had good enough reflexes to jump behind the pillar in time. Didn't prevent the laser from scraping Ay's armor though.

Meanwhile, I got a message from Crick. "Human, you must leave this station as soon as possible. Our ship does not rest in the starport anymore and neither does theirs. The situation has escalated. Our ship is sending escape pods to retrieve you and so is the enemy's."

"Just a second," I replied. "We are almost done."

"Don't you want to know what this pillar is for?" Ay said.

I thought he was stalling time, but Kira put her blaster down. Maybe she had a point. Mad scientists love explaining their evil master plans in gloating monologues, so, why not take advantage of this?

"First of all, I would like to thank you for distracting the monster for us," Ay began. "It was not as cooperative as I thought, so, it was easier to simply steal the information we needed.

"As for the pillar you see, it's a radio station. We deciphered the aliens' language to send a harmful radio wave signal that will spread the Plague once it reaches your friends' home-moon."

"Okay," I said. "Why did you just explain this? Do you seriously think we won't try to stop you?"

"I take it you didn't read Watchmen. Perhaps I'm just old and that comic has faded out of the public consciousness.  The punchline is that I never used the future tense in my explanation. To quote the great Adrian Veidt, 'I'm not a comic book villain. Do you seriously think I would explain my master stroke to you if there were even the slightest possibility you could affect the outcome?' The radio signal has been sent already and you cannot stop it."

Kira shot the pillar. Most of her blast got absorbed in the impact spark. Part of it reflected back to her armor and left a small gouge. The pillar, however, looked as unblemished as ever.

Ay and his accomplices, including the bear-sized Primogenitor, took that as a signal to dash away.

We followed. Waves of heat emanated from the stone in my left hand and filled my muscles with energy. I accelerated from stillstand to full speed in two-point six seconds. The scattered debris around me blurred into indistinct lines. Even if I hit a wall, I could just run through it. I was unstoppable.

We ran into a gloomy, spacious hallway. Despite the green darknesses, I saw all the nooks and crannies of the decaying tunnel.

A laser hit the walls.

I wasn't surprised by our pursuers. Layla followed us, running away from a black carpet of hellish mire she couldn't distract. Didn't matter, not even Cherub could stop me now.

Everyone ran in a zigzag. I and Kira avoided Cherub's projectiles while our enemies evaded Kira's laser blaster.

I didn't even plan to shoot. The moment I grabbed Ay, I'd body slam him into the wall, feed him to Cherub, and then Crick'd fly me home. I couldn't wait to grab that fluttering white coat of his and punch his smug face.

A laser punctured my chest from behind.

Damn you, Cherub.

I fell to the ground, limbs splayed from my body. Nanobots closed my exposed blood vessels, suppressed my pain receptors, and mobilized redundancies to replace my damaged organs. Even so, it had to slow down my metabolism and my oxygen supply to make sure I survived.

In my last fleeting moments of consciousness, I saw why the roof had blown up. Cylindrical pods hovered above the site of our chase. Behind them were white star-shaped pods that I took to be part of Ay's fleet.

One of our cylinders extended a mechanical arm to pick me up. I didn't see the rest of what happened, but I presumed Ay's pods did the same. The battle ended and I fell asleep.

[-]

A strong gravity pressed on my chest when I woke up. The air wasn't green anymore and the ceiling was dome-shaped. Kira, Crick, and Helix surrounded me, the latter two cushioned by airbags.

"I-is the monster still here?" I asked.

Kira, being the only one who understood me, answered. "No, you are safe. We fixed you,"

I took it my singularity stone wasn't as good at healing as hers was. I didn't have any special ability that I was aware of. Don't tell me that, even after I got my stone, I was still the useless one.

On the other hand, I was far stronger than the Seizers now, meaning they couldn't bully me anymore.

"Captain, I'm not wearing my collar anymore," I transmitted.

"This is correct. You can thank Pilot for this. I only gave you the collar to appease them."

Tesla still stood in their cockpit place from which they never moved. However, their eyes weren't focused on the panels, but on me.

"You don't hate me anymore?" I transmitted.

"No," Tesla transmitted. "My views of you were wrong. I thought of you as someone prejudiced against my kind. In reality, I was prejudiced against you."

"So, what changed your view of me?"

"I saw how much you did to save Doctor, but I dismissed it because I thought you were that way only to fellow biologicals. Now, you let yourself become enhanced. You are a freak, like me."

"Em, thanks."

Tesla turned back to their panel and accelerated harder than before.

"Why are we accelerating like that?" I asked.

"Our truce is over," Crick answered. "Mustafa Ay's starship is invincible to us. It has far more delta-velocity available, accelerates significantly faster, possesses better weapons, and now even houses a precognitive alien that predicts every strike we make."

"So, we can't win anymore?" I asked.

"At least we'll have to retreat for now," Helix transmitted. "Even our automated ships get destroyed one by one. Let's see what was in his radio wave signal."

The two went back to their panels, leaving me amidst the bridge with Kira.

"I don't know if they already told you, but Layla is still with Mustafa," Kira said. "I saw her jump in one of his pods."

"They didn't tell me this," I said.

Great. We failed at every bit of our mission. Ay is still alive, got everything he wanted and Layla is still on his side.

In other words, we stopped to defeat Ay when he was at his most vulnerable. He is nigh-invincible now and our fleet is almost depleted.

I finally stood up. Given how Layla's missile hit the centrifuge in our last space battle, I had no room to retreat to. Thus, I went near the corner of the bridge. Kira followed.

"Are you upset?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Layla might be on Mustafa's side, but she doesn't hate me anymore. She's only with him because she thinks he can't be defeated. She lost hope."

"What about you? Didn't you also support him? You said you felt hopeless and that his assimilation plan was the only way out."

"Not anymore. Layla doesn't hate me now. Neither do you. I have people to live for. We accomplished quite a lot below. Saved some aliens, got a power-up for you. You even look better."

"Um, what?"

"No hunchback anymore, healthier skin, this whole bio-optimization has its advantages. Maybe my healing nanobots also helped, who knows?"

I had to break eye contact to think of an answer to this. I decided to switch topics "Yeah, I'm sure they did. I'm stronger now and all. But do you think I'm ready to fight Ay that way?"

"Not sure. You aren't as experienced as the rest of us yet. I might have to teach you a lesson or two."

She raised her fists.

"You mean now?" I asked.

"Why not?"

I raised my fists, too. I had no idea how to throw a proper punch, let alone what a proper combat stance was. She caught my jab rather easily.

"Too slow," she said. "Afraid of your new strength?"

"What makes you think so?"

Kira let go of my fist.

"Don't worry, I also struggled with this," she said. "When you punch, it throws your body back and you need proper posture. Especially if you do it with superhuman strength. You might even need anchoring."

Now that she mentioned this, I tried out various postures. Feet apart, one before the other - nothing felt right.

"I think you should take the lead when it comes to Ay," I said.

She shook her head. "You'll understand him much better than I do. You are both intelligent dorks, you both have strong beliefs in what your do, and you both seem to have somewhat weak singularity stones. Mustafa is kinda like you, only that he is evil."

Not a very flattering comparison.

She got me thinking though, especially about that part with the weak singularity stone. His didn't perform any impressive functions like precognition, mind-reading, or controlling alien technology. I couldn't believe the others accepted him as their boss unless he had an ace up his sleeve that he didn't show.

The sooner we understood his stone, the faster we'd know how he always remained one step ahead of us. And the sooner we could return home.

I spent the next hours by myself, typing in my diary. We didn't have much else to do, with Tesla and Crick being responsible for keeping our spaceship alive.

I checked the clock occasionally. It took us only sixty hours until we saw the fallout from Ay's message. Shadowmoon had fallen to the Plague. It was destined to become a barren wasteland much like the Primogenitors' world. There was no way for us to stop a signal that travelled at lightspeed without breaking the laws of physics. Only Earth remained.