I looked around the cell until I found a ventilation shaft, it was too small to even fit a toddler lucky for me my size more than a perfect fit for this improvised escape tunnel.
I looked back at my corpse. It was a bit haunting to see my eyeless face covered in blood, guessing I might have a new set of nightmares after this.
There was barely anything left of my limbs, just my torso and head, laying in a pool of blood. I would have to leave it here just in case anyone came back to clean up the mess. I turned and made my way to the vent and squeezed through the bars, inside was just a tiny metal hallway my own personal road to freedom.
There were tiny red light panels leading to either side. I picked right and started walking. I made it about thirty feet before I looked over my shoulder, it sounded like tiny metallic pings behind me, at the edge of my vision was a spider-like creature. It was made of dark metal, the small thing clicked its way over to me and nuzzled against my leg.
It was kind of cute, it clicked and clacked and emitted a few high pitched whistles. While I was petting the strange spider another one showed up and soon more followed. I went back the way I had come to find the source of these little guys, they were coming through the same vent I had, I peeked around the corner and watched as tiny black blobs coming from the large pool of blood.
They were trace amounts of the metallic bloodline that hadn't had time to merge with the core! The crowd of tiny metal arachnids congregated around me as if to seek my approval, I placed a hand onto one of their heads and willed it to join me.
Its body began to liquefy before it rolled up my arm, as it moved around the liquid metal was absorbed into my body. There was more metal than I estimated to be in the arachnids and by the time I had absorbed a single one I had grown half an inch taller.
I was prepared to absorb another one but I actually had a bloated feeling, I guessed I had a limit to how much metal I could absorb, I wasn't sure if this was an issue of power at my command or if it had anything to do with my consciousness core.
For now, that would have to wait, I started to jog back down the path I had chosen, with my small arachnid army on my heels, I passed a few rooms here and there but none that looked promising.
I rounded a corner and slid down the shaft for 12 feet, well that was one way to go down a level, I kept going down this new path for a few minutes before I came to the next grate.
Inside was a technician working on a terminal, I heard him mumble about not having food and drink near the terminals as he was replacing a few parts. After a half an hour of waiting, the terminal screen brightened up and displayed a manifest of the ship, the technician put away his tools and left.
'Thank you incompetent techy!'
I pushed the grate open and looked for a way down, my little arachnids came to the edge and spun a string of metal spider silk, another spider joined the first as they spun a ladder made of the finely spun metal.
I climbed down after my arachnids as they made their way down, we were right above the terminal and it only took us a minute to descend onto the control panel. Accessing the terminal was easy, thank you pirates for not securing your network, the first thing I looked for was a schematic of the ship.
Cargo manifest, routes, targets, hideouts, even their account information.
Everything was here including the schematics and a prisoner manifest, I hesitated before skipping the schematic and opening the files for the prisoner manifest. There they were at the top of the list under our family name, a benefit to having our last name begin with A, my brother's file listed him as deceased. His remains were still on board the ship near the shuttle bay.
My sister's file had her listed as comatose and recovering in the medical wing. She was still alive, I opened the schematic and memorized the routes I needed to get to the fuel storage room and then to the medical bay which was on the level right above
I closed down the terminal and climbed the ladder with my new tiny friends hot on my heels, it took me 20 minutes of navigation before I finally reached the fuel storage. Crystals of various sizes and colors spanned the small warehouse, there were even some that could match the size of my manor's front doors and those would be the downfall of this ship.
I released a small horde of bunnies all around the room, each one sitting upon their own crystal, I put a few large and crystals into my spacial pouch and ran back into the vents, I didn't know if anyone would be checking on the fuel storage so it was best to make my escape quickly.
Three floors and half of the ship was between me and my sister and stealth was my only option, I began running and climbing up through the bowels of the ship I had only managed to climb one floor. I needed to move faster.
I looked around but none of the rooms I had passed offered me any solution.
Twenty arachnids came to near me and began to liquefy a few moments passed and what was left of them had become a much larger spider, it knelt beside me and clicked its metal mandibles as if to tell me to hop on. I clambered on top of it and as soon as I was settled in the spider took off along my initial route to the infirmary.
I would have been more excited if I wasn't trying to escape, my little spiders seemed to be connected to my subconscious and would do what they could to fulfill my needs.
We made excellent time on my tiny spider mount, the climb for the last floor was vertical and would have taken me quite some time to conquer that climb without my eight-legged steed.
We raced around the corner and slammed into the grate that led to the infirmary, though we were small we still made not so quiet clang. I repositioned myself on my tiny steed and looked through the gate, no one was home beside the young woman on the bed.
Her blond hair was messy and from what I could see she had bruises on her face and arms while her lips were severely chapped. I pushed on the grate but it was bolted shut before I could think of how to get in my spiders began to chew on the bolts, 'I love you tiny guys so much' i thought to myself.
Just as I saw hope the door to the infirmary slid open and an older looking pirate came into the room, he stepped in front of my sister's bed and started to undo his pants, "I don't give a flying fuck what the captain said, I'm going to fuck you to death, you lil winged bitch. Teach you for using those teeth!"
'This fucking bastard!' my spiders started biting with a frenzy at the bolts making little thinking sounds, luckily the old pirate didn't notice, the old bastard's pants fell down and he grabbed my sister by her ankles.
The grate fell down with a light crash as my spiders bit through the bolts, I hauled a combat puppet out and it walked up behind the man a few spiders crawled onto the puppet and spun a garrote into its hands before the pirate could violate my sister again my puppet looped the sharp wire around the pirate's neck and pulled back.
Before the pirate knew what happened the wire was cutting through his neck, he started to struggle and attempted to call for help. His muffled cries went unheard as the garrote cut into his vocal cords and finally his carotid artery, blood sprayed out and the oxygen deprived man passed out from blood loss a few moments later.
Blood covered the puppet, she was designed to be a splinter but she had never gotten the consciousness core so I had to control it with my mind so as not to alert the pirate, which meant I had better control but I hadn't trained like Hextia had so I could only control the puppet or myself, not both.
I had the puppet remove her armor and put on a spare lab coat, there was a cart for transporting corpses and patients. We loaded the dead pirate on top and stowed my sister in the compartment underneath, I wasn't too happy to put her in the compartment as there was dried blood still inside and it smelled like death, but it would have to do for now.
I stored my spiders in my spacial pouch and had my puppet place me in her coat pocket. There was no time to waste as we left the bloodsoaked infirmary, I was leaving too many bread crumbs and I was not going to be dying again.
We made our way to the shuttle bay, my ship was to the side, there were a few pirates working on smaller ships and shuttles but that was all. I walked past them and walked as quietly as I could.
"-Master! I can finally feel your presence again!-"
I heard Hextias voice reverb through my mind, I was elated to hear her voice again. '-Hextia, it is a relief to hear your voice! When did you wake up? Are there any pirates on board?-'
"-I woke up last week, about two weeks after you had been captured, and there are only a few pirates on board they are still searching for anything useful or hidden on board.-" her soft voice reported. I couldn't believe it had nearly been a month since I was captured, maybe they had drugged me when I first got here?
I tried to recall it but I felt a wave of revulsion and flashes of a memory crossed my mind but I stopped as a headache started at the base of my skull. As soon as I stopped trying to remember those weeks the discomfort disappeared.
I put it at the back of my mind for a more appropriate time, '-Hextia, capture those on board. If you can't capture them kill them quickly and quietly.-'
"-Yes master!-"