“It’s not that I forgot about you guys, I think about you all the time, it’s just there’s no way I can reach out to you now, you know? Can’t exactly send a postcard.” I insisted, spreading the feed out to the chickens.

My grandfather just chuckled, kindness always in his eyes, his mouth a permanent grin, “I know Adam, I’m not blaming you—not trying to guilt trip you or anything.” He said and took the empty feed jug from me, then just looked at me and sighed, “Still, I worry about you son.”

I sighed too, “I know Gramps, but what would you have me do?”

Gramps chuckled again, “Would it kill you to visit at least once, let us know you’re still alive?”

I laughed then and pointed to the bomb in my neck, “Actually, it very well might kill me if I try to sneak on back to Earth.”

My grandfather and I shared a hearty laugh, “Well, nothing for it then.” He put his arm around me and started leading me back towards the house, “Come on, let’s see what your Gram is making for dinner.”

I looked up at the old farmhouse, “What about Evie, is she cooking with Gram?”

My grandfather looked confused, “Evie? Who’s Evie?”

I turned to Gramps to ask if he was messing around, but I was alone once more, and then suddenly I was falling—the farm was falling away from me, the sun and the sky, falling into an endless abyss, blackness all around me.

I was returning to the void.

***

I bolted upright as though I’d been electrocuted, and I couldn’t suppress the primal scream I unleashed as I frantically waved my hands through the air as though to fight against invisible enemies.

“Fuck, fuck fuck—holy shit no, no no no!”

“Sir, sir please calm down!” A voice announced over an intercom, “You’re safe.”

I shut my eyes tight and covered my ears, bracing for the impact of falling into the void again.

“I won’t go back—just fucking kill me!” I screamed.

“Sir, you’ve exited void space, you’re fine now.” The voice insisted.

Do I dare risk it? It could be a trick, an old memory—a nightmare.

I decided to open one of my eyes to see if I was actually safe.

“What the hell?” I barely whispered.

I appeared to be in some medical bay, all white and pristine, clearly futuristic, so I was definitely still out in space. I was laying on some cot wearing my same clothes I had from before; dark jeans with my studded belt, black gravity boots that came up just below my knees with my jeans tucked inside (they looked super cool, but also they were comfortable and helped stabilize me while walking around since the artificial gravity on Krook Hook was shoddy at times), a regular black t-shirt with the red Nintendo logo and my blue hoodie, with my red and black armored space vest over it. Only reason I wore the vest was because I thought it made me look badass, told Eve I felt like Han Solo. Overall, the outfit definitely made me look like some ragtag space mercenary.

I looked around the rest of the bay and saw it was surprisingly spacious, with almost a dozen beds around me in a line, all filled up with people I recognized.

There was Zyno in his classic blue jumpsuit, Bryx with a dark tank top and black tactical pants, Willa in a grey sports bra-like top and tactical pants (she was weirdly sexy even though she was big and monstrous, a surprising mix of thick muscle and full curves, very amazonian), Roote was shirtless with his rocky/rhino skin exposed while wearing some black and gold armored pants and boots, and then Durgo was wearing the only armor I’d ever seen him wear, though with that weird, bulky insect body of his I didn’t imagine his people had much flair for fashion.

Everyone else was still unconscious, some monitors behind them must’ve been hooked up to wirelessly show their vital signs. I checked myself to find I had some strange sticker the size of a credit card attached to my chest, I yanked it off and the monitor behind me blacked out immediately.

I looked around the room to see there were lots of sterile cabinets and cases, everything meticulously organized, but weirdly white and haunting, with bright overhead lights that were starting to give me a headache.

I realized one reason everything seemed so white was due to the walls, they were all fogged out to prevent us from seeing outside—a two-way mirror effect I would imagine, and even the door was fogged out in the same way.

“We had one more, smaller guy, blue with a bulbous head.” I said to the room.

There was a brief pause in the voice’s response, “Yes, he’s on the far bed to your right.”

I looked over to see a black and grey zipper bag the size of a person on the bed, rather than the person I was expecting.

“He…didn’t make it.” The voice said somberly.

I hopped off the bed, a little unsteady at first, but after bracing myself for a few moments I felt strong enough to make the walk over to the far side of the room.

It looked like any body bag you might find on Earth, though made of some fancy space-age material. There was some clasp up top fancier than a regular zipper, and I pulled it down to reveal Doctor Hennor’s dead body.

“Oh shit…” I whispered.

His death clearly wasn’t peaceful, face frozen in terror, mouth opened so wide his jaw probably dislocated, eyes burst out with dried blood trailing out of every orifice. He wasn’t fully stiff yet, extremities still a little floppy, so he probably only died a couple hours ago.

A couple of hours since we escaped from the void.

I offered a quick prayer to whoever might be listening, then closed the bag back up.

“Where are we?” I asked the room.

“The deep space freighter Jessipie-90.”

I nodded along and turned towards the door, “We were responding to your distress beacon, but our exit gate destabilized and we barely escaped void space in our lifepod.” I waved a hand around vaguely, “Lost the vessel we were going to use to tow you guys out of the system.”

“We figured that’s what happened, so now we’re all stranded together I guess.” The voice said, sounding almost amused.

I sighed and walked over to the frosted door, trying to ignore the migraine that was drilling into my brain, “You wanna let me out of here then, see if we can’t get a message out to our guild?”

There was another pause in the voice’s response, “I’m afraid I can’t do that just yet.”

I bit down a harsh response, trying to keep my patience, “And why not?”

“Multiple reasons, the simplest of which you never gave us Imperial clearance codes to be allowed aboard our vessel.”

I grinded my teeth together, “I guess we should be grateful.”

“Well, we did save your life.” The voice offered mildly.

I sighed again, barely keeping it from turning into a frustrated groan, “Can I at least see who I’m talking to? Turn off the fucking frost on all these windows?”

There was another pause, and I swear I was going to freak out if the voice just ignored me, but then the frosted windows on the doors cleared so I could see an alien standing right behind them.

It was a reptilian alien like Seash—a glizreks, although this one looked younger, less grizzled—less mean. He was a male, his scales pale green, with bright feathery plumage on his head like a mohawk. He was wearing a simple black jumpsuit uniform with a bulky grey vest with a hundred pockets. He was definitely smaller than Seash, almost skinny even. His eyes were bright blue, and while I thought he looked young, behind his eyes he was clearly beyond exhausted.

“My name’s Gadow, captain of Jessipie-90.” He said respectfully, bowing his head slightly.

I held up a hand, “Hey, I’m Adam, guild mercenary from the now destroyed Krook Hook rescue vessel.”

Gadow was studying me carefully while we talked, “What guild do you belong to?”

“Lazaron.” I answered easily.

Gadow looked off to the side, and while I couldn’t see anyone else, it was obvious there were more people nearby, and they were surely going to check the records of the Lazaron Mercenary Guild to see if we were legit.

Of course, mercenary guilds kept shitty records at best, having a revolving door of members constantly bouncing between guilds, flirting the line between living an honest life or a crooked one. It was the simplest thing in the world for our agents to fudge their records to make our official guild profiles a few years older than they were—probably a common occurrence with regular mercenaries even so they’d be able to bid for better contracts with the increased seniority.

I quirked up an eyebrow, “I assume you have someone vetting us now?”

Gadow flashed me an awkward smirk, revealing a shiny row of small white fangs, “Sorry, but if you had any idea what we’ve been dealing with, you’d understand we need to take every possible precaution.”

Well, I knew they had a deadly Predazoan on board, but I certainly couldn’t reveal that kind of information. Instead, I needed to work with what I was supposed to know.

“Your distress beacon said there’d been some deaths amongst the crew, even some disappearances; have some of your people been having mental breakdowns due to being stranded?” I inquired.

Gadow laughed and shook his head, “Of course not, friend. Remember, we’re a deep space freighter; we’re used to being stranded and isolated for years at a time.” His smile fell away quickly, “No, the disappearances can’t be explained by anything we understand.”

I was about to ask if it was deaths or just disappearances when Bryx suddenly started screaming from his bed. I looked over to see him start swinging wildly as though trying to fight, causing him to fall off the cot.

I rushed over towards Bryx on the ground, “Bryx, Bryx!” I shouted, jumping back to dodge his blind haymaker.

“Fuck you! I said fuck you, you can’t make me go back there, I won’t—” Bryx stopped when he looked up at me, blinking his eyes several times as though trying to see if I was real, “Adam?”

I held my hand out and he took it, and I lifted him back to his feet, “Don’t worry, we’re out of void space.”

He shivered when I said the word, then looked around the medical bay “Where are we?”

I hooked a thumb towards the doorway with the clear glass, “Jessipie-90, we’re in their med-bay. They rescued us.”

He looked down at me, “Have you been up long?”

I shrugged, “20 minutes maybe.”

Durgo started screaming then, followed quickly by Roote. Bryx and I worked to calm the agents down, and before everyone was settled Willa woke up and started freaking out too.

I wondered briefly if I’d woken up first thanks to my enhanced regeneration, or if it was something to do with my already unstable human mind adapting to the chaos of the void. Whatever the reason, all the hardened soldiers woke up one after the other, leaving just Zyno the simple researcher unconscious.

I got the others up to speed quickly, and we all gathered around the doorway to talk with the captain of Jessipie-90.

Durgo still had his tablet with him, belted on the hip of his armor, and even though it was clearly damaged, he was still able to turn on the display and show it to Gadow, “Here, the Imperial clearance codes; you can let us out now.”

Gadow waved over another person, this one also a glizreks, a light blue female, skinny like Gadow, but with slender feminine curves and breasts. She also had hair, unlike most male glizreks, long and lustrous, deep purple with dark blue streaks, starting at the top of her head before it tapered to the spine of her neck. She produced a tablet too and looked at Gadow and nodded.

“The code checks out.” She confirmed, but didn’t look that relieved.

Gadow smiled apologetically, “That’s one problem solved, but I still don’t know if we can release you yet, for the safety of my crew.”

“Meaning?” Bryx pressed.

I gestured towards Gadow, “This about the deaths and disappearances? Which is it; are people dying or are they disappearing.”

Gadow exchanged a nervous glance with the woman next to him, then turned back to us and sighed, “It’s both, but even after someone has been killed, the body disappears afterwards too.”

Durgo crossed his arms over his bulky chest, “Someone’s hiding the bodies?”

The woman shook her head quickly, “Stealing the bodies, hiding the evidence; we have no idea what’s going on, but people are starting to panic.”

Roote pointed towards the woman, “And you are…?”

Gadow puffed up his chest, almost looking defensive, “This is my lieutenant, Fierra.”

Lieutenant Fierra put a hand on Gadow’s arm, as though to reign him in. Fierra looked young too, so if I had to guess, it was both of their first time in these commanding roles, and I would expect the two of them to get defensive over it—would need to be careful not to offend them.

Roote held his hands up quickly, “I meant no offense.”

Durgo hissed out a sigh through his voice modulator, “Listen, we came here to help you, and while we might not have our towing vessel, we damn sure won’t be able to help you locked up in here.” He insisted.

Gadow looked off to the side once more, clearly looking towards other people, then turned back to us, “I understand this must be frustrating, but I doubt you can even imagine what we’ve been dealing with these last few cycles.” He pointed towards the cots behind us, “Just bear with us for a little while so we can figure out how best to proceed.”

Before anyone else could protest, the frost took over the glass on the door once more, blocking our view of Jessipie-90’s crew.

Willa grumbled, causing her tentacles to coil up her face and mouth, “Now what are we supposed to do?”

Durgo shrugged, then started walking over towards his cot, “Nothing we can do for now. They might just be following Imperial quarantine protocols, or maybe they’re going to have a vote to see if they should just jettison us back out to space.” He reasoned.

Bryx and the others followed along behind him, “Considering the lifepod’s systems are more than likely fried, if they sent us back out in space it would be a death sentence.”

Roote shook his head, “That’s if they’re so inclined to give us our pod back.”

I sat down on my cot and looked over at the agent, “Meaning?”

Roote shrugged, “A desperate crew stranded in the middle of deep space, surviving through mysterious deaths and disappearances. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to think they’d kick us all off their vessel, keeping our pod to scrap or strip it for resources instead.”

My eyebrows shot up, “You really think they’d just kills us like that, send us all out into the vacuum of space?”

Durgo’s voice modulator crackled deeply, and it took me a few moments to realize he was laughing—the first time I’d ever heard him do that, it was quite an unpleasant sound.

“I’ve seen far less desperate people act far more cruelly. If we’re lucky, they’ll at least kill us swiftly.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep