Realistically, I knew I wasn’t a match for a Predazoan, but I couldn’t help as my instincts kicked in, and I activated the weird organelle that enhanced my perception to the point where everything seemed to slow down around me as my mind and body grew a hundred times faster.

I didn’t even wait for anyone else as I bolted off in the other direction, leaving the rest of the group behind. I raced through the dark, dank hallway of the subbasement at a blinding speed, and suddenly all fear and doubt was stripped from me; I wasn’t concerned about what was hiding in the dark now—Freddy Krueger’s boiler room no longer bothered me, instead I relished in the power I felt, my superhuman abilities emboldening me.

I raced through the hallway and found the stairway, and I leapt up through it as though I was a monkey—no, as though I was Spider-Man!

Normally I had a terrible sense of direction, but I was glad we spent all day yesterday looking around for missing crew members as it gave me enough insight to know where I needed to go.

I could hear the screams and shrieks before I could see anything, all slowed down and weirdly warped with my enhanced perception.

I made it to the engineering bay in less than a minute, having to stop myself at the doorway so I didn’t go sliding into the opposite wall.

Inside the engineering bay was total chaos; there were several work desks upturned or thrown around and smashed, some broken computers on the ground, and random alien tools I had no idea what they were had been scattered all over. Right away I saw a body on the ground by the doorway, it was Cikirna, the androgynous female grendall; her torso had clearly been ripped open and looked hollow inside—all the organs had been removed.

A few feet away from her I saw another body, it looked like Unno, the blonde male kebophyn, but it was hard to tell with all the deep, bloody gashes on his body—plus his head was missing.

“Adam, help!” I heard Zyno call out.

I looked over to the corner of the room to see Zyno and Reim hunkered down behind a deployed repulser barrier under attack by three small, dark tentacled monsters—Predazoan drone forms.

The little drone forms looked like slimy black orbs each about the size of a basketball, with a dozen glowing yellow eyes more towards the top of the strange orb. They also had a dozen black tentacles a couple feet long snapping erratically after their prey, with a random assortment of a few sharp crooked or hooked silver spikes on the ends. The bottom of the black, fleshy orb opened up as a large, rounded mouth with dozens of small sharp silver fangs, looking like a lamprey—shrieking and trilling angrily all the while.

I pulled out my proton blade and activated it so the black blade snapped out and then started glowing bright red with the condensed energy, then rushed forward to slash after the little drones.

I cut the first one down easily, cutting it in half and then following up with a few more cuts until I diced it apart completely, and a moment later it melted into useless black ooze.

I turned on the remaining two, but they reacted quickly and leapt away from my sword strike. I pulled out my plasma pistol and started following the drones around the room, shooting after them—trying to anticipate their movements. They moved too erratically to properly track, climbing over the walls and ceiling faster than any natural creature should be able to move. One of the drone forms turned towards me and hissed, then leapt after me with all its sharp tentacle spikes facing towards me.

I sidestepped out of the way and cut the drone form down the middle, following up with a few blasts from my pistol until I could right my blade again to cut into it a few more times to completely disable it.

Now there was just the one drone form left, and it slowed down its crazed movements while it hung on the ceiling in the corner, watching me with all its eyes as though it was working something out—calculating the threat I posed maybe, wondering why I was able to fight against it or something.

I could hear Reim crying in the corner behind the shield, and Zyno egged me on all the while, sounding almost manic. The drone form meanwhile hissed at me, snapping its strange circular mouth, but didn’t make a move to attack just yet.

I tried to look around quickly, check my surroundings to make sure there weren’t any more threats nearby, but the drone took that moment to lunge after me, springing towards me with such speed even with my enhanced abilities I couldn’t get out of the way in time. I held my sword up to try and block most of the tentacles, but the drone was still able to slash a few along my right side and shoulder. It wasn’t terribly deep, but the pain burned into me, distracting me even further. The drone form sprang back after me, but at least this time I could anticipate what it was doing and dove to the floor to just barely avoid it.

From the ground, I threw my proton blade after the drone form, hitting it in midair and pinning it to the wall with incredible force. It started pulling itself apart to get free from the blade, but moving as fast as I could, I was able to pull the heavy carbine rifle off my back and fire off a quick burst of shots into the center of the splitting core, and the drone let out a terribly high-pitched screech as I watched it melt away thanks to the destabilizing acid.

The entire fight lasted no more than a minute, but I felt completely exhausted then as I braced myself from falling over on the floor, letting go of a deep breath I didn’t even know I was holding.

“Adam, thank all the gods you made it in time!” Zyno called from the corner of the room, releasing the shield barrier.

The moment the pair was free, a sobbing Reim ran after me and nearly tackled me on the ground, hugging me and sobbing into my chest.

“It was so awful, I was so scared! I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, please don’t let me die here!” She wailed.

I tried to pull the crying woman off me, but she held onto me like her life depended on it—for all I knew, that’s probably what she thought. I was too tired to protest, so I just gave up and let her cry and hold me, and I patted her back comfortingly.

“It’s alright now, you’re safe.” I assured her—though for how long she was safe, obviously I would have no idea.

Funnily enough, this wasn’t the first time I had some woman cry against me after saving her life; back on Earth working as a firefighter paramedic, there had been a few occasions where someone had clung to me like this—first time it was an alien woman though.

Zyno made his way towards us, kneeling by me and Reim, looking like he was just barely holding on too.

“So, what the hell happened?” I asked.

Zyno rubbed at his eyes and shook his head slowly, “Holy shit man, it was unbelievable.” He looked back up at me, waving off towards the dead bodies, “I’m just about finished with my scanner and was telling them about it—shoptalk really, but obviously being vague so I wouldn’t freak anyone out with what all we would be searching for. Maybe I gave a little too much away or Gamma-20 was smart enough to figure it out, but all of a sudden, Cikirna’s torso fucking exploded and those three drone forms ripped out of her.” He held up the repulser shielding disc, “I didn’t even have time to properly explain, I just yelled out for everyone to get in the far corner as I got the shield ready to be deployed, and by the time I looked back Unno was already dead and then Reim just barely made it behind cover with me—”

Reim wailed again, as though remembering how close she came to being killed fully renewed all her fears.

Zyno ignored her and continued with his story, “So then I called you right away, knowing you were the only person who could get here in time to save us—knowing you’d probably be the only one who’d be able to kill the drones.”

The exhaustion I felt was receding, and my adrenaline was finally cooling down so I was mostly feeling normal again. I finally pulled Reim off me as I stood up, but then she just clung to my leg as she cried, still refusing to open her eyes as though it would somehow help her escape this nightmare.

“You said in your message Gamma-20 was here, but it was just the drone forms, right?” I asked.

Zyno stood with me and nodded, “Yeah, just those three, and clearly Cikirna had been assimilated.” He looked down at the crying Reim, then back up to me, “No telling who else might have those drones inside them—controlling them.”

I put the heavy carbine rifle on my back again, then crossed my arms, “I’ve never seen Predazoans assimilate like this before, normally it’s a mass of tentacles all inside—like some twisted full-body puppet. Question is, do you think she’s fulling controlling the people she’s assimilated, or do you think those drones are hidden inside people until it’s time for them to break out—like incubating eggs.”

Zyno quirked up an eyebrow at me, “Adam, look over at Cikirna, all her organs are missing; that isn’t something you can survive walking around and shit—and it was all too sudden to think they devoured those organs before they ripped out of her. No, what’s most likely happening is Gamma-20 is being really careful with her biomass—using the bare minimum, a few small drones instead of fully filling someone’s body to control them.” He reasoned.

I nodded along, “She’s being careful with her supply, only using it sparingly.” I looked over at Zyno, “Any idea why?”

He shrugged, “It’s got to have something to do with the crystals—her supremacy drive.”

I looked at the little black puddles of useless ooze and smirked, “Well, good news then, whatever little store she had, losing any amount of biomass probably hurts her significantly—helps make the threat more manageable I bet.”

Zyno tilted his head back and forth, “That, or you just gave her a reason to go after someone else—collect more biomass.”

I stroked at my beard as I thought over the possibilities, “No, I don’t think she’d risk that.” I patted the carbine rifle on my back, “Especially since she knows there’s a real threat to her on the ship. Plus, it really seems like she’s been staying away from people in groups of four or more.”

Zyno nodded, “We’ve found a cautious one; she isn’t taking any unnecessary risks.”

I waved my hand around in a gathering gesture, “Question is why though—why the hell would an all-powerful Predazoan need to be so cautious?”

Zyno shrugged, “Cautious or not, the Predazoans are beyond brilliant, so we can’t afford to ever underestimate her—can’t think we’re safe just because our target is being cautious.”

Reim on my leg sniffled and hiccupped a couple times as she finally got her crying under control, then stood up to stand beside me.

“What are you guys talking about, what’s this Predazoan thing?” She asked, sounding meek as a church mouse.

Shit, not like we could really help it, but letting Reim in on the Predazoan secret wasn’t something I wanted to deal with yet; I was sure the crew would need to find out eventually—especially once we started working up towards a confrontation with Gamma-20, but I didn’t want any of the Jessipie-90 crew to know about our real mission until we could know for sure if anyone else had been assimilated.

I looked over towards Zyno, “How’s your device looking, almost finished?”

Zyno walked over to an upturned desk and moved it aside to reveal what appeared to be a curved flashlight attached to the side of some square digital display.

“Give me an hour or so to recalibrate it, then it’ll be good to go.” He said, giving me a thumbs up.

I nodded, then turned back to Reim, placing my hands on her shoulders so she was forced to look at me.

“Reim, you have to trust me for now, but you can’t tell anyone about what me and Zyno were talking about, not just yet, okay? I promise we’ll tell everyone everything that’s been going on, we just need Zyno to finish his scanner device first.” I urged.

Reim looked over towards Cikirna’s dead body, “You need to scan us to make sure more of those monsters aren’t inside us, right?” She turned back to me with those big black eyes, tears shimmering at the edges, “It’s possible there might be more of them—more of our crew might be infected with—”

“Maybe, which is why you can’t say anything, because if they know we’re onto them, they’ll try to attack us like they did here, alright?” I said, trying to sound gentle.

“Is it possible…” Reim looked down at her feet, “Could those things be inside me?”

I gave her a kind smile, “No, these things don’t work like that; trust me, you’re safe.”

Reim barely looked up at me, “You promise?”

I nodded, “Absolutely.” I gave her my most confident smile, “Trust us, this is something we know a lot about.”

Reim was silent for a few minutes, and I wondered briefly if she was considering whether to actually believe me.

Finally, after a few moments of deliberation, Reim nodded, “Okay Adam, you saved my life, so I’ll trust you—I’ll do whatever you need me to do.”

I let out a quick sigh of relief, then led Reim over to sit down in a chair, and she just about collapsed into it.

I looked over towards Zyno, “Hurry up on that thing, I imagine the commotion here won’t go unnoticed for long—not to mention the bodies.”

When I said the word bodies, Reim leaned away from me and puked on the floor.

Once again, Zyno ignored her, using some strange sparky-pen-thing on his device.

“Yeah yeah, leave all the nerdy tech shit to me.” He gestured at me with the pen-tool, “You go on and keep being a badass hero, making all the chicks swoon for you. Just don’t forget, without the right gear and support, the hero’s story won’t end well.”

I smiled at that but didn’t have anything else to say really; it didn’t matter how much of a badass I was now, or how amazing Zyno’s tech would be, despite the brave face I was putting on, against an immortal Outsider god Predazoan, I didn’t see how our story could ever end well.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep