Gadow activated the navigation hologram, displaying the Derrion System; the map zoomed into the sector we were at, with Jessipie-90 in the center. A few sections on the ship were highlighted, with text windows with damage reports popping up and scrolling through all the messed-up systems on the ship.

“A few cycles ago we hit the projected end-date for our 20-year contract drifting through the Derrion System to filter through dark matter particulates while our automated compression systems turned them into stable khorna crystals. We achieved 88% storage capacity, surpassing the 80% quota for the tour.” Gadow announced, and I could see quite a few people in the crew seemed proud of that milestone, although I didn’t know what all they did to achieve that since they just needed to drift through the system and orbit planets for several years. “By all accounts, the mission was a great success, with no major complications or problems, no downed systems during the tour, and we were even going to get an 8% surplus bonus once we returned to the company with our bounty.”

The hologram showed a warp gate with some more text windows and mathematical errors, some equations that meant nothing to me.

“Unfortunately, when we opened the warp gate to leave the system, it destabilized and collapsed right before we could pass through it, unleashing a destructive wave of dark matter radiation that overloaded our warp reactor and fried quite a few of our internal systems, stranding us here.” Gadow continued.

Zyno beside me raised his hand, “What systems were disabled?”

Gadow gestured to the hologram of the ship, “The warp reactor of course, but also our G-drive, essentially preventing us from doing anything but drift aimlessly in space here. Some of our particulate filtration systems went offline, but that doesn’t matter at this point. A few electrical systems went down, but we fixed those pretty quickly. And then of course long-range communications have been failing; only reason we lucked out with you finding us was since you were somewhere close to the Derrion System when one of our distress beacons went out.”

We weren’t about to correct him, but their communications should’ve worked just fine, it was one of our long-range probes that blocked their distress beacons from leaving the system. Ever since we tracked Gamma-20’s exit warp gate to this system, we kept one of our probes out here, so that was how we were able to contain Jessipie-90’s distress signal the moment it went out, and we kept monitoring the ship to confirm there was Predazoan activity before they sent our team.

Now the question was, would our team be able to send out a distress signal to The Radiance, or would all long-range communications be contained by the deep space probe?

“Life support systems intact?” Durgo pressed.

Fierra nodded along, sitting beside Gadow, “Life support is all fine, no concerns over air, water, food, temperature, or even gravity; with the systems we have now, we could survive another hundred years out here without any issues.” She looked over towards her captain, then back at us, “We’re having other, more mysterious problems now instead.”

“The disappearances?” I reasoned.

Quiet chatter broke out amongst the crew of Jessipie-90, but Gadow reigned it in quickly when he held up a hand.

“It all started a few days after the warp gate collapsed, we’d spent the time getting some of the downed systems back online, standard maintenance really. But as you might’ve noticed, we aren’t accompanied by any automated workers now; I’m not sure if you’re aware, but normally for a deep space freighter, 90% of the workload is managed by our robots, while the crew members maintain critical systems and make the definitive decisions, while also keeping the robots in working condition.” Gadow explained.

Yeah, I wouldn’t think the hyper-advanced Empire would have these people doing all the manual labor, and considering the company was so worried about keeping the crew comfortable, I didn’t see a reason they wouldn’t have a robot workforce to help.

“We had an automated crew of 121 robots.” The male grendall, Zemman said, “All in pristine condition, we sent most of them back to their charging pods while we worked on getting Jessipie-90’s systems back and running, with only 18 out helping crew members.”

“Then out of nowhere, there was some huge explosion on the robotics deck, destroying the remaining 103 robots who were in their charging pods.” The androgynous female grendall, Cikirna added.

“Then things started getting really weird, as we started finding the remaining robots destroyed one by one over the next few days.” Wynana, the female imphonite said.

“Right now, there’s only four still functional, and we’ve got them locked securely in an extra storage unit, with full-time live surveillance.” Num, the male imphonite added.

The Jessipie-90 crew started talking over each other, offering various explanations or rumors as to what all happened to the robots, too chaotic to actually hear anything substantial.

“Everyone, please.” Gadow called out in a clear voice, and his crew quieted down quickly, “Let’s not overwhelm our guests, we’ll just stick to the facts.”

Gadow seemed like he held command pretty well, or at least the crew knew well enough to behave orders while in the middle of an emergency.

Gadow turned back to our team, “That all happened over the span of a cycle, and while we did our own investigation, we weren’t able to come to any conclusions.”

“Suspecting sabotage?” Bryx asked.

Again, quiet chatter ran through the crew once more, but this time Gadow wasn’t the one to reign it in.

“We aren’t going to get anywhere by infighting now; while the circumstances are obviously suspicious, those of us remaining need to cooperate if we’re going to get out of this mess.” Fierra insisted, sounding quite defensive—clearly not wanting to suspect anyone of sabotage after working/living with them for 20 years.

Of course, what other explanation was there? Obviously, we knew it was Gamma-20, probably trying to eliminate all those extra eyes on her; I wasn’t sure what kind of robots they were, though I assumed they would be able to relay information, maybe even transfer audio or visual recordings to the rest of the crew. But if the crew didn’t know that, did they think it was some terrible freak accident that systematically eliminated almost all the robots on the ship?

Were they just being hopeful, or living in complete denial?

Gadow sighed and shook his head, “Whatever happened with the automated workforce, two cycles ago things really took a turn for the worse.” He swept his gaze over his crew, then back to our team, “That was when we found our first casualty.”

Before the Jessipie-90 crew would chatter a bit here and there, but now there was a tense, awkward silence that hung heavy in the air.

“We discovered the body of our chief medical officer in his office, he’d been performing lab work on the crew to make sure no one had any health concerns after the dark matter radiation swept through the system.” Gadow said, then looked away from us, “The scene was gruesome.”

Smart of Gamma-20 to get the head doctor first, especially if he was starting to do tests and bloodwork on the crew; didn’t know if her disguise would pass the doctor’s tests—Gamma-20 might not have known either; maybe she was willing to remain in hiding before, but once she perceived a threat, she needed to get proactive.

It also explained why Doctor Reim didn’t seem to know what the fuck she was doing, she might’ve just been the chief’s assistant for all we knew—maybe just a student doctor or some specialty “doctor” doctor.

“Describe the scene.” I said calmly.

Pretty much everyone from the Jessipie-90 crew looked at me with a horrified expression, but we needed to know what all we were getting involved with—and they knew that too.

Gadow sighed again, then held his hands up as though to help illustrate his point, “Doctor Fenx was on the floor, on his back, with his entire…torso ripped open—violently. Blood was pooled all around him, with his bones all shattered and frayed as though someone had been digging into him, and then his…” Gadow paused, looking over to Doctor Reim who looked like she was holding back tears, then turned back to us, “All his internal organs were removed.”

Gamma-20 probably consumed them for biomass, but I wondered why she hadn’t just eaten the doctor’s entire body, get all that biomass.

“Where’s his body now? We’d like the examine it.” Roote confirmed, careful to try and sound delicate.

Gadow and Fierra exchanged a quick glance.

“The body…went missing.” Gadow confirmed.

“All of them have, everyone who’s been killed, their bodies were all eventually taken away a few days later.” Fierra added.

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair as I thought that over; it didn’t really make sense how erratic Gamma-20 was being, how unpredictable she was. First, she destroyed all the robots, that made sense if she was trying to remain hidden. Next, she killed a doctor who was performing tests on the crew, again, made sense if she was trying to stay hidden. But why only consume some organs instead of the whole body, then come back for the rest later?

I could maybe believe she was too small to fully consume a person if she was still in her tiny squid-form like how Eve looked when she first landed on Earth, but would that little squid be able to stealthily take out all those robots? And after consuming just a little biomass, wouldn’t she have been big and strong enough to completely consume the next body, no reason to leave the others behind at that point.

Did it have something to do with the khrona crystals? Was she being careful how much biomass she was consuming, wanting to focus more on what she was doing with the crystals instead? Or was she just playing mind games—psychological warfare with the remaining crew members?

Durgo gestured for Gadow to continue, “Run us through the timeline, how many deaths and when the bodies were taken.”

Gadow nodded, “First death was around two cycles ago, body taken down to cold storage. A few days later, Yopoge, our communications specialist, was found dead in the maintenance shaft under the main communication relay, and when we took the body down to cold storage, we discovered Doctor Fenx’s body had been stolen. Another couple days passed and we discovered Jynk, our navigations expert dead in his quarters. Again, when we brought him down to cold storage, Yopoge’s body was gone, so this time we left our chief security officer, Plennar down to guard the area.” Gadow explained.

“Let me guess, a couple days later, you discovered he was dead too, and Jynk’s body was missing.” Zyno surmised.

Gadow shook his head, “No, we discovered he was missing too, leaving a large pool of blood behind, and then we found Jynk’s body was missing.”

“From that point on we never discovered another body, people just went missing without a trace.” Fierra added.

I scratched at my beard, reasoning out the timeline; it seemed like that would be the point Gamma-20 simply started consuming people whole. Either she realized she was leaving too much of a mess behind and started trying to be even more stealthy, or she learned something with the combination of biomass and khrona crystals so she didn’t need to be so reserved about consuming entire bodies now. Or maybe she realized she needed more biomass at that point, needing to create a full nest for herself with whatever she was doing with the crystals.

“Over the next cycle a few more people went missing so we started having everyone move around the ship in pairs. Seemed to work for a couple days, but then a pair of our crewmembers when missing, so now we’re saying people need to always stay in a group of at least four people.” Gadow started ticking off fingers, “That means working, patrolling, eating and sleeping, we don’t want any of our crew ever in less than a small group now.”

Fierra half-smiled, “Since we enacted that change five days ago, there hasn’t been another disappearance.”

I looked over at Zyno, and I figured as the Predazoan camouflage expert he was probably thinking the same thing as me; for all the Jessipie-90 crew knew, people were still getting picked off and assimilated—or maybe Gamma-20 was just biding her time, walking around among them in disguise.

“All told now we’ve lost eight crew members, and at this point we’re considering anyone who’s gone missing to be dead.” Gadow confirmed.

“Have you done any sweeps through the vessel, try to find your missing people?” Bryx asked.

Gadow shook his head, “We had some sensors and probes, but they were either destroyed when the warp gate destabilized, or after when our automated workforce was taken out.” He gestured to the people around him, “We’re all that’s left and considering we don’t know who might be behind this mess, we aren’t about to start running down Jessipie-90’s every dark hallway, instead we plan on focusing on getting the vessel in working order again to get back to Imperial space where we could have military officers sweep through the ship to find the stowaway culprit.”

“That’s what you think’s going on, some cutthroat stowaway?” I asked.

Fierra crossed her arms and glowered at me, “Like I said before, we won’t get anywhere if we start blaming the rest of the crew, and if we have any hope of survival stranded out here in deep space, it’s imperative we work together.”

Gadow nodded along, “Besides, everyone here stands to make significant profit once the mission is complete, plus the 8% surplus bonus. Really, this honest work is going to make us all rich, so why risk jeopardizing your share by betraying the rest of the crew?”

“And it’s not like you can just sell khrona crystals on the corner market; they’re the most regulated and protected resource in the entire Empire.” Lummy, the busty goth kebophyn added.

The rest of the crew joined in, muttering their agreement and solidarity.

“Really, after living together for 20 years, and all we stand to gain from this tour, and all we have to lose in sabotaging it, what other explanation could there be for all these mysterious deaths, other than some dangerous stowaway trying to steal our valuable cargo?” Gadow reasoned, and once more the crew supported him.

From his point of view, I suppose that was a reasonable stance; aside from someone going mad or stir crazy, why would a crew member risk their share of the regular mission reward? On the surface it seemed like he was just being hopeful and naïve, but honestly thinking logically, someone would have to be an idiot to betray this deep space mission.

And yet they were seeing things without all the information, had no idea their dangerous stowaway was an insanely powerful alien abomination, a Predazoan; even though they knew their lives were in danger, they had no idea how great the threat truly was, and how little we could do to stop it.

Of course, even with all the information, we weren’t really better off. For all we knew any one of Jessipie-90’s crew could be Gamma-20 in disguise, or worse yet, any number of the crew could be assimilated. The only people we knew we could trust for sure would be our team, at least until we could figure out a way to test the others—maybe Zyno could rig something up, some scanner or test.

For now, we needed to be cautious and careful, make sure we stayed around each other for security so Gamma-20 wouldn’t try to pick us off on our own—if that’s what she was really doing, provided Gadow’s story hadn’t been bullshit.

I let out a long, weary sigh as I realized how isolated we all were, how dangerous this situation was, how unpredictable it would be. I still had a little headache from our time in the void, and my nerves were pretty well frayed, but beyond all that—the fear, the doubt, the dread, I missed my Eve.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep