We decided to follow along with what Brunt said about the missing couple hooking up in the escape shuttle and made our way over there, walking through the main maintenance basement, down a lift, and in the middle of the large vessel—central to everything, was the emergency shuttle that offered little in the hopes of actual survival.

Jessipie-90 had clearly been built to maximize the crew’s comfort while also having state-of-the-art systems to achieve peak efficiency, but the escape shuttle was the first thing I could see where they were lacking. It was still obviously hyper-futuristic, looked pristine—untouched really, but it looked anything but comfortable—like a large, rounded classic flying saucer mixed with a bus, not even as livable as Krook Hook. There was only one bunk room with bunkbed cots almost overlaying each other, one small communal washroom, the cockpit, and then one central room that was a day room/command center/navigation and communications system combination. It looked like it would only comfortably fit a dozen people or less, but with that many people I wasn’t sure how long they could last.

There was a food synthesizer on board, a regenerative life support system as well, even a limited water filtration system with extra hydration medications and survival protein rations, but it wouldn’t be enough to keep an entire crew alive for more than a few cycles—even the food synthesizer would run out of the weird nutrition paste eventually. A person by themselves could maybe last a few years if they were really careful, but with a crew our size, people would be clawing at each other’s eyes the second they realized how quickly our supplies would run out.

We walked through the escape shuttle in a rather quick tour since it wasn’t very large, and no one was surprised when we didn’t find our missing couple.

Gadow leaned against the doorway of the escape shuttle, closing his eyes and rubbing his elongated reptilian snout, letting out a deeply weary sigh.

“Things aren’t looking so good, are they?” I said, not really a question at this point.

Gadow shook his head slowly, “Not at all.” He said mildly.

I looked up at the escape shuttle, “So realistically, how far do you think the nearest repair station would be?”

Gadow opened his eyes and looked at me, then followed my gaze to the shuttle, “Too far to travel via G-drive.”

“You said several cycles though, right? Then do you actually know where the nearest repair station would be?” I pressed.

Gadow turned back to me, “I don’t know exactly, and obviously they move since they have orbits, so I’d have to doublecheck our navigation records. Saying it would be just a few cycles is being optimistic.”

My eyebrows shot up, “That’s optimistic?”

Fierra came through the open doorway of the shuttle, stepping around Gadow, “Doesn’t matter anyways, the G-drive is still fried on this thing.”

I shrugged, “Simpler to fix than a warp reactor though, right?”

Fierra narrowed her eyes at me, “Just how many projects do you think our crews can juggle?”

Gadow waved her off, “No reason to talk about that now, let our engineers focus on the warp reactor.” He looked at me, “And we need to focus on keeping everyone safe—keep them working together. Remember, you’ve only been here one day, we’ve been out here surviving on our own for decades, stranded for a few cycles now. Eventually your team might start changing how they feel about their survival, and you need to be ready to keep them motivated—keep your own mind right through all this too.”

Considering everything I’ve dealt with in my life up to this point—especially in more recent years with the Empire and the Predazoan containment mission, I felt confident I would be able to keep my spirits up, to stay motivated working towards our survival. But honestly, could anyone really say how they would react to being stranded in a dangerous, desperate situation? What if more people started disappearing—what if more critical systems started breaking down? What if it looked like there really wasn’t a chance we’d be able to survive out here?

No, I knew for certain I would never give in to despair for one simple reason; Eve was somewhere out there in void space, and she was waiting for me. I didn’t know how long it would take for us to be reunited, didn’t know what all I would have to do, but there was nothing in this universe that would stop me from fighting for my future with my Evie.

We still had to have our forever, so the idea of dying out here, for me, was impossible.

***

For the rest of the day, we continued searching around Jessipie-90 for the missing couple, Hekon and Dotte. Once we’d spent a decent amount of time on the mission and went through the main floor and the basement, Gadow called it a day and said we’d finish the search tomorrow in the subbasement.

We met up with the rest of the crew for dinner and got a status update from everyone. Zyno said he was nearly finished with his scanners, which was great news, but for the team of engineers, they hadn’t even started dissecting the warp reactor yet, taking the time to map out all its schematics while it was still intact. Obviously I couldn’t say anything since I had no fucking idea what it took to disassemble a warp reactor, but I felt like taking a whole day to plan it all out seemed like a waste of precious time—of course I wasn’t an engineer, so again, I really couldn’t say anything.

That night everyone had a few drinks together and then headed back to the media room to unwind, watching another couple movies before it was time to turn in. It was funny we had all these entertainment options, all these comforts, yet clearly no one had the energy to do anything else, just wanting to stay in large, safe groups and watch mindless television.

Apparently all across the universe people were still pretty much the same.

The night was much better this time, and I actually got some decent sleep, had regular dreams and everything, and in the morning it seemed like Zyno was properly refreshed as well.

Same as the day before, we all grabbed breakfast together, confirmed no one went missing that night, and then started splitting up for the day’s work.

Zyno was taking a few other specialists with him for safety, including Doctor Reim this time around. Durgo and Roote stayed with the engineers and headed down to the warp reactor, and then of course our security group was the same as yesterday and headed for the subbasement to finish our search for the missing people.

I saw a little bit of the subbasement before when we went to check out the warp reactor, but the rest of it was just as creepy—looked like a futuristic version of Freddy Krueger’s nightmarish boiler room, felt like a horror movie monster was about to pop out at us at any minute. It was a strange mix of a basement, a sewer, and a derelict computer server station, all a bunch of long halls connected to large maintenance rooms.

I had to admit; I was a little freaked out.

Gadow clearly noticed.

“What’s the matter Adam, never been in the subbasement of a deep space freighter before?” Gadow chuckled, walking beside me leading our brave little search party.

I glared at him, “Oh blow me, you can’t tell me this is fun for you.”

Gadow shrugged, “I used to take walks down here when I wanted some peace and quiet—feel the living hum of Jessipie-90. I used to find it relaxing.”

I wagged my finger at him, “See? ‘Used to find it relaxing’, not after there’s been deaths and disappearances on the vessel.”

Fierra laughed too then, “And you’re supposed to be our main protector, the guy with all those genetic modifications is afraid of the dark?”

I ground my teeth together and bit back a reply; it wasn’t the dark I was afraid of, it was the immortal, Outsider god hiding in the dark I was concerned with.

“Keep laughing and we’ll see who I feel like saving when shit starts going down.” I grumbled.

We walked down to another dead-end, the maintenance room of the regenerative life support system.

Gadow made a sweeping gesture with his hands, “Turn back people, we’ll cross over that last junction and then head through to the artificial gravity control room.”

We started back the way we came, and now I was at the back of the line with Gadow and Fierra.

“You know, we’re going to all this effort of searching the ship, and yet you people still aren’t saying anything about checking out the crystal storage tanks.” I said mildly.

Gadow and Fierra exchanged a look but didn’t say anything else.

I sighed quickly, “Look, if there’s something we need to know about that side of the vessel, like if you know there’s—”

Gadow shook his head, “It’s not that Adam, we aren’t hiding anything if that’s what you’re concerned with.”

That was exactly my concern, wondering if Gadow or any members of the crew were assimilated and purposefully keeping us away from Gamma-20 while she was nesting in the storage tanks.

“Then what is it?” I asked.

Fierra looked back at me, “Company protocol states no one but the crew can go to the storage section of the vessel during the tour, and once the tanks have been sealed when the mission’s confirmed complete, no one’s supposed to go into the tanks—legally, the seals are supposed to remain untouched until they make it back to the company refinery.” She explained.

“So, what, the breach in protocol is illegal or some shit?” I asked, not really getting it.

Gadow sighed, “It’s not so much as that, but barring a confirmed catastrophic event, our entire crew would have to testify before the licensing board to explain our actions, and if they deemed they were unnecessary, there’s some severe penalties.”

Fierra started ticking off fingers, “They could fire us from the company, revoke our licenses, ban us from working on khrona crystal freighters ever again, not to mention drastically garnish our wages—maybe even take us to court to collect damages if there’s any problems with the shipment.”

“And you don’t think a cutthroat stowaway murdering the crew is considered a catastrophic event?” I pressed.

Gadow shook his head, “We don’t actually know if that’s what’s going on, and for all we know the khrona crystals are fine; there’s a security system that would tell us if any of the storage tanks’ seals have been broken.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “Didn’t you say some systems went down when the warp gate collapsed? Isn’t it possible you guys missed the warning?”

“There’s more safety redundancies in that system than for anything else on Jessipie-90; if someone was inside one of the tanks, we’d know.” Fierra insisted.

Not if that someone could shapeshift into fucking spores and sneak through your filtration system; there was no way those seals could stop a Predazoan unless they’d been designed for it—like some repulser shielding or inhibitor field or something, and I doubted the company would even think to go that far.

“What if we just checked around the tanks without actually going inside, I assumed there’s some connecting junction, right?” I reasoned.

“Again, only crew could go back there, so it would be just us rather than you or your team, and then it would still take a couple cycles to walk through if we didn’t know where to look, and considering we need to keep our focus on our current objectives, we can’t spare four or more people to do something like that.” Gadow countered.

I threw my hands up in a frustrated gesture, “So we just have to ignore a huge section of the ship, even though that might be where the danger’s hiding.” I turned back to Gadow, “What the hell is your company going to do if everyone on board dies? Wouldn’t it be better for them to risk a couple tanks rather than lose the whole shipment?”

Gadow eyed me flatly, “Adam, we already told you a recovery vessel will come to take back the cargo; there’s no way the company would risk losing everything over a dead crew.”

I snapped my fingers as I realized there was hope after all, “Hey, so honestly we just have to wait until the recovery vessel comes to get us right? So even if we can’t fix the warp reactor, we just need to hold up for a while; you said there would be enough supplies on Jessipie-90 to last another hundred years, right?” I inquired.

Gadow and Fierra exchanged another look and this time they looked like they were clearly holding back their amusement.

“What?” I asked.

Gadow turned back to me and just sighed, “Adam, standard protocol is the company doesn’t send a recovery vessel until three times the duration of the expected tour has passed.”

“What the fuck, so you mean another 40 years

has to pass before your company starts looking into where you guys are? Holy shit, why?” I demanded.

“Those contract timelines are estimations, Adam; the projections say it should take 20 years to fill up 80% of our storage tanks, so that’s how long we’re expected to stay in the Derrion System. For the most part, those projections are pretty accurate, but if you end up in a bad section of your sector, you might be far away from your quota, and while technically you can make the decision to return as a crew, not only will you be monetarily penalized for not reaching your quota, but you’d likely be blacklisted from ever working on a deep space freighter ever again.” Fierra explained.

Gadow shrugged, “Some crews stay out longer on purpose to try and hit a good surplus bonus. We were actually trying to reach for 90% storage capacity, but things really slowed down this past year, so as a crew we made the vote to return at the projected end-date for our 20-year contract—right on schedule.”

I scratched at my beard as I tried to grasp the idea of working on decade-long contracts while the timelines were so variable, “So then why the hell do they wait until three times the tour date until they send a recovery vessel? Doesn’t that seem extreme if your tour is for 20 years, they don’t send help until 60 years pass?” I pressed.

Gadow sighed again, “Adam, these are the protocols—the company policies we accept; we sign up for these contracts knowing we’re on our own out here.” He waved his hand out vaguely, “Needless to say, if a recovery vessel brings the shipment back to the company refinery, the crew will have to surrender a large portion of their pay; forget the surplus bonus, what the crew makes afterwards is but a fraction of what they’ll make from a successful contract.”

“Unions have actually fought to push back the recovery vessel timeline.” Fierra added.

I rubbed at my eyes in a frustrated gesture, “It’s all profit over lives again, isn’t it—even your own lives.”

Fierra crossed her arms and glowered at me, “Says the mercenary.”

I was about to bite back, but Gadow stepped forward to cut me off.

“Imagine giving up two full decades of your life, living this job as much as working it, and then just because there’s some malfunction with your ship, all that hard work—20 years goes down the drain, and you come away from the contract worse off than you were before.” Gadow said seriously, his gaze steady and even.

It was then I realized it wasn’t just the money—obviously that was clearly a huge part of it, but Gadow was constantly fighting to keep his crew’s morale up, so naturally the idea after all this trouble they would still be able to successfully complete their contract, that would be a huge motivator. It was crazy to think about, but the idea they could still finish their job was a source of hope for them—something they could still hold onto.

For me, I could survive another 40 years thanks to Eve’s immortality enzyme, but could the same be said for everyone on board? I was sure no one was that old—I was told before how people in the Empire could live for several hundred years, even a thousand if they were really wealthy, but these people still had limited lifespans, so would they really be able to survive throwing away 40 years just like that, stuck and stranded in the middle of deep space?

Not without a lot of hope they couldn’t, and even for me, the hope I held onto was I’d see Eve again someday, and we could start our forever together.

I realized then I really couldn’t judge Gadow or anyone on his crew, instead I just needed to help out—to keep hope alive as much as I could.

“Listen, Gadow, I understand there’s some things I won’t—”

Suddenly, my communicator started blaring at me—the emergency signal.

Everyone in the line stopped and looked at me when I picked up the call, but before I could even say anything, I heard Zyno’s frantic voice.

“Adam, Adam fuck! Fuck! Get here now—oh shit, come to the engineering bay, hurry!” He said, sounding beyond panicked.

“Zyno? What the hell’s going on?”

There was a crashing noise on the other end of the call, and then I heard a high-pitched, echoing screech.

“Adam, it’s Gamma-20—she’s here!”

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