Once Nico got the confirmation nod from Max, she sent the navigation message, infected with the retrovirus, to every one of the Co-Operative vessels at the same time.


    The others might not know what was going on, but they also didn''t know that their ships were infected, so they would still have everything connected to the datawork unless they actually took the warning from this ship seriously.


    The chances of them doing that seemed pretty slim, given the ragtag, civilianck of organization that Max had seen so far, but they could always be warned that they needed to reconnect to the ship to cleanse their devices.


    "Alright, the message has been sent, so the ships should be starting to self-cleanse right now. Give them a while, and we should be able to reconnect to the shipputers and let the retrovirus reach all the devices on the ship.


    And I do mean all. That spare holo watches you only wear on special asions, the trinket you only checked a few times after you left your homeworld, everything needs to be checked and verified clean before it is safe to let you go.


    But once that is done, we have a proposal for you all that you might want to take us up on." Max informed the group leader.


    "There is a chance that the Koleska will take us in after all?" The man asked hopefully.


    "Roughly a snowball''s chance in hell." Nico agreed, leaving the man confused.


    Max shook his head. "It''s a human saying that means it''s not going to happen. But while the Koleska isn''t willing to take the risk, if your people are willing to leave everything behind, the Reavers, our faction of the human species, is willing to take you in.


    You will have to leave your ships and all potentially tracked belongings behind, but we will find you a new home on a World Ship, gainful employment based on your skills, with the chance to open your own business if you prefer, and good, liveable wages in a rtively safe environment." Max exined.


    "What if only some of us want to go with you?" One of the ship''s crew asked.


    "Then you have a bunch of perfectly good, now tracking device free, ships to stay on. We''re not going to destroy your vessels. We''re just not going to take them to our home Gxy, in case they can still be tracked."


    The crew members brightened up considerably at that news. Even if their leaders decided otherwise, they could go with the humans to somewhere far away and hopefully to safety and normal life again.


    The leadersmanded their ships and made the decisions, so there was a chance that they wouldn''t want to go anywhere and leave behind thest vestiges of their old lives. But for most of the people on board, their old lives could fit in a suitcase, and even if it needed to be disinfected and the electronic devices left behind, they would still have most of what they already had. <novelsnext></novelsnext>


    One after another, the newly cleaned devices were ced on the testing tablet and verified clean since the retrovirus was written in the samenguage as their localputers. That meant it would need to be customized for some other species, but Max was hopeful that most species in the region used the same codingnguage, but hopefully with better digital security.


    ·?θm [No unidentified code detected.] The tablet dinged again as thest of the people in the room verified the devices that they had on them, making the meeting room a clean area, free of the Arisen Army''s virus.


    "Now that the devices in this room are clear, I will scan for any infected devices on the ship, and then we can begin the final purge. Any electronic device that is detected with the ability to contact other devices needs to be cleansed." Nico informed the group leader.


    "How will you do that?" He asked, not technically adept enough to follow what Nico was saying.


    "I will send a signal through the ship from our shuttle, and it will determine if there are any devices capable of detecting it. It''s part of our sensor suite. Don''t worry, it''s not harmful, and it won''t damage any of your sensitive electronics, only determine their location.


    There is a biomechanical species in our home Gxy that is most easily detected this way when they are hiding in the walls of your ship."


    "What sort of species is a threat but can hide in walls?" The Koleska delegation leader asked.


    "We call them the Scourge. They have a small processor core head and a dozen long mechanical tentacles that can be used to break apart metals, reform into ws to tear apart living organisms, or anything else that they need." Nico exined and then brought up a hologram of them attacking a Mecha group.


    "Well, now I''ll have nightmares about monsters in the walls. Thanks for that. Have you ever faced them?" The Sumander in charge of the Koleska asked.


    "In fact, we have. The first time we were on a field trip, only a year after we started our basic training at the Military Academy as adolescents." Nico replied with a nostalgic look for the memory.


    That was the beginning of her thoughts of System Induced body modification, as she saw the potential in what had be of the Scourge before they had totally lost themselves to the quest for efficiency and expansion.


    The Co-Operative group looked morbidly intrigued by the concept of the Scourge, so Nico put on a short video of them breaching a ship and being fought off by Line Mecha and infantry in the hold. It was strategically censored, but it was enough to make them reconsider any thoughts they might have had about introducing them as a foreign predator to the area that could deal with the Arisen threat.


    If the two species ever met, nothing good woulde of it.