A couple of years ago, the captain of a Thargoid transport ship travelling through the Pleiades sector accidentally hit the "jettison all cargo" button and spewed 16,777,216 units (8^8 - the ship was full to capacity) of Thargoforming Modules all over a large region of the galaxy. The Thargoid Hive Queen was not amused and ordered the careless transport captain to fly out in a small scout ship and retrieve them all, one at a time, no matter how long it took. So now, that Thargoid scout ship is slowly cruising around the Pleiades sector and scooping them all up again. Occasionally, they get a false alarm when a human ship passes too close; they scan it, realise it isn't actually one of their missing Thargoforming Module canisters, and move on. They don't realise that the crazy humans are actually picking up the Thargoforming Modules themselves, carrying them around in their ships and using them for their own mysterious purposes.