It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but of course people had more questions. I wanted us to get back to work since I had no idea how long Gamma-20 would remain cautiously dormant, but when someone was told a dangerous, otherworldly monster was hiding on their ship and could potentially ruin 20 years of work, obviously they would get curious about it.

The questions ranged from their origin-story or how the Empire first discovered them, all the way to our team’s involvement and previous missions.

I was careful to tell them just enough to satisfy their curiosity without revealing too many secrets to the point I felt like even Durgo would approve. Obviously I didn’t tell them about the Predazoan cloning project the Empire ran and instead told the crew the Predazoans have always existed out there in deep space, with legends and myths spanning across the ages all through the Empire. I also tried to downplay some of their abilities since I didn’t want to freak anyone out, but I had to be careful to properly warn them how dangerous they were—a tight line to walk. They wanted to know more about our previous missions and how we defeated the other Predazoans, and while I tried to be vague I gave them a few stories about our time on Entana, the Holistia Nebula, and then Vyrane, and then I told the crew about our specialized acid-rounds that could completely destabilize them and that was how we destroyed the others—sorry Eve for stealing your kills.

Then things shifted a little and the Jessipie-90 crew wanted to know what other kind of specialty threats we fought against—what other terrible creatures might be lurking in the shadows of deep space. I quickly told them that was all confidential and I was even breaking protocol by telling them as much as I was about the Predazoans.

Of course, then came the hard questions and I had to tell everyone what happened to Cikirna and Unno in the engineering bay. Some had already guessed, but a few were taken completely by surprise, including Zemman who had been in a relationship with Cikirna; he’d been holding onto hope for as long as he could until we confirmed she was actually dead.

I then had to tell them I was also using their bodies as bait to see if Gamma-20 would leave them alone, and while yes some were obviously horrified I would defile their remains like that, I insisted this would be one of the best ways we could determine how safe our side of the ship still was.

We then moved onto new operational procedures; right away I warned them we needed to dispose of all bodies from now on, no more leaving them in cold storage. It was then I realized no one had checked Doctor Hennor’s body, and more than likely it would’ve been taken by Gamma-20 at this point. For the others, it would be best to incinerate them to prevent Gamma-20 from accumulating any more biomass.

We also confirmed we’d continue moving around in large groups for safety, and now that our numbers were starting to dwindle even more, the larger the groups the better—absolutely no one was to go anywhere alone anymore. Gadow even wondered if people should start showering together; apparently the pool gym had some communal showers, so they considered making one for the males and the other for females.

We also decided we would be doing daily testing with Zyno’s scanner, and if anyone disappeared or started acting strange, they would need to be rescanned immediately; we needed to be as cautious as the vyranes were if we were going to make it through this.

Finally, we confirmed the engineers would continue working on the warp reactor, hoping to get us out of the system rather than try and fix the communications system; people worried if another crew came to help, the Predazoan might just destabilize their warp gate too, and then we’d end up in the same position we were now, but with more people to keep track—more variables to worry about.

Overall I would say everything went as well as I could hope; I didn’t bare my soul and reveal my every truth like I had back on Vyrane, instead I was calm and careful what all I told the Jessipie-90 crew, and while they now knew of the existence of the Predazoans, they didn’t really now that much about them—I kept the worst of the Empire’s secrets hidden. I also felt like they were educated enough they would be much safer now, knowing what all we were dealing with and what was at stake, and I also felt like morale weirdly improved a little since their enemy was no longer some mysterious, possibly fictional stowaway, and they knew there weren’t any saboteurs on the crew.

They lost a lot, and most of them were grieving, but I would say we were finally working together as a unit, so hopefully that alone would give us a better chance against the dangerous Predazoan.

***

Someone bagged up Yevok’s body and we carried it with us as we all made our way back to the engineering bay to check on the other bodies. While we walked through the ship, Durgo carefully moved over so he could hiss/whisper to me quietly so no one else would hear.

“I believe you handled that as well as anyone could. Good job.” He said gruffly.

I looked at the strange beetle man and wondered if I should have Zyno scan the commander one more time to make sure he hadn’t been assimilated.

“Yeah, make sure you put that in your fucking report.” I said.

When we made it to the engineering bay, I was beyond relieved to see the bodies were still there, which I took as a good sign Gamma-20 was locked up in her biomass nest somewhere and left this part of the ship to her assimilated puppets, and since we killed all those, it probably meant we were free of her at least for now.

Once Zemman saw Cikirna’s mangled body he ran towards her and collapsed and started wailing as he tried to hold her to the point Brunt had to pull him away.

Honestly I was a little surprised Zemman was with Cikirna since he seemed like a more handsome version of Zyno, while Cikirna was rather plain—androgynous to the point she was maybe even a bit strange looking. I thought Reim was much more attractive when it came to female grandalls, but of course people were free to love whoever they wanted out in the Empire, no rhyme or reason to several couples I’ve seen before—like Kurgg and Nadresh, the strange couple we met back in the Holistia Nebula.

I just wished that freedom was afforded to me and Eve.

They gathered up the bodies in more of those strange duffels and we headed down to cold storage to check if Hennor’s body was still there.

Sure enough, it was missing, same as all those before it. People then couldn’t help but wonder who took it and what they did with it; was it Yevok, or maybe Cikirna? Then that got people wondering what happened with Hekon and Dotte, if one of the puppets had snuck out of their room too and killed the couple while they were out on their romantic tryst.

No sense in speculating too much since we’d probably never learn the truth—like why Doctor Fenx seemed to be assimilated even though he was the one performing blood tests on the crew, or maybe he was assimilated because he was about to administer those tests, and then of course people wondered who’d been behind the robot sabotage; it just went round and round with more theories—almost as bad as it was when people were talking about the possible cutthroat stowaway.

I realized then it was kind of a coping mechanism for the crew, trying to discern order from all the chaos—speculate so they could hold onto something they believed would be the truth. In the end I stopped trying to reason with their various theories and speculations and just let them all go.

When we were finally done collecting bodies we went to the incinerator in the subbasement where all the trash was taken. It wasn’t a normal incinerator obviously since we were surrounded by future-tech, instead it was some crazy blue plasma inferno that basically disintegrated everything, and then the ash and dust motes would be filtered out into the vacuum of space.

Gadow and his people placed the three bodies in their bags on the conveyor belt that led to the incinerator and then ended up having an impromptu funeral service. Zemman cried over Cikirna and talked about their relationship and how strict Cikirna could be and how he thrived on the structure. Then Wynana sobbed as she talked about how her and Yevok had been dating the last few years and how they were even planning on working another long tour together once this one was finished. Unno was next and while he didn’t have a current romantic entanglement he was apparently quite friendly and got along with pretty much everyone, and he was known for being incredibly competitive, especially with Hekon, and ever since he went missing Unno had been in incredibly poor spirits; people said they missed the brightness he always brought to breakfast in the morning.

Then Fierra pulled out a little flute and played a haunting, beautiful melody as they activated the conveyer belt to load them into the incinerator.

Everyone was silent then as we watched the wild, roaring blue flames consume the old friends and lovers, just the sound of the inferno and the flute mingling together while people grieved.

My team mostly hung back while the Jessipie-90 crew stayed close to the incinerator while they grieved, hugging and crying and even laughing together as they told stories about the crew we were laying to rest, and then they started talking about the others who died or disappeared, and then the funeral changed into a big exchange of everyone’s favorite stories of those who were no longer with us.

I was silent and respectful during the funeral, but I wasn’t really present as I couldn’t help but think about Eve and wondered morbidly if when she returned from void space she would have to have a funeral for me. I knew I shouldn’t dwell on such negative thoughts, but what if I couldn’t survive against Gamma-20 without her? What if she was gone so long the immortality enzyme eventually wore off? She said it would only last me a couple thousand years if she didn’t dose me up again or alter my biology more, what if she remained trapped in the void all that time?

I shook my head quickly to try and break out of those thoughts, realizing I probably sounded like some whiney emo kid when I should be focusing on how to survive all this so I could see her again.

Zyno reached over to grab my arm, and I’d been so lost in my thoughts I nearly jumped in surprise.

“Shit, don’t scare me like that Zyno.” I said, speaking quietly to not disturb the others.

Zyno smiled sheepishly, “My bad.” He whispered, then nodded towards the corner of the room, “Just wanted to show you something.”

I nodded along and walked with him away from everyone else, “What’s going on?”

He looked around as though making sure we were really alone, then pulled out his tablet to show some mapping hologram.

“Is that the Derrion System?” I asked.

Zyno nodded, then it zoomed in several times to show our sector with Jessipie-90 and everything.

“Yeah, and check this out.” He said, then zoomed in further to show some weird squiggly line in space.

I quirked up an eyebrow, “Okay, your screen has a fracture or something?”

He turned to glare at me, “That’s not a fracture in the hologram, that’s a fracture out in space.”

I cocked my head to the side, “What the hell does that mean?”

He waved the tablet and hologram around, as though trying to emphasize how important it was, “It means that’s a crack leading to void space.”

It felt like my heart was about to leap out of my chest as I was suddenly filled with an intense feeling of hope, “Holy shit, you think that’s Eve trying to get back to us?”

Zyno looked away, “I dunno, maybe.”

I could tell then he wasn’t delivering good news, rather he seemed quite nervous over this development.

“Well what else could it be?”

Zyno turned back to me, “Remember what I said about warp gates collapsing? If the gate collapses and seals, great, calamity averted. But if the collapse leads to a fold rather than a seal, it could turn into the void singularity I told you about.” He explained.

I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out as hope was slowly turned into dread, “Oh fuck, you’re saying that thing could turn into a black hole or some shit?”

“Shh!” Zyno shushed me quickly, looking around to make sure no one else was paying attention to us, “Last thing we should do is cause a panic; we’re already trapped on a stranded deep space vessel with a fucking Predazoan, telling them all we’re about to be consumed by a void singularity certainly won’t help things.”

“Does this mean we’re working on a ticking clock now or something? How long do we have?” I demanded.

He waved me off quickly, “Adam, I don’t have any idea—I’m not fucking clairvoyant over here. For now, we just need to keep an eye on it, maybe it is Eve trying to come back to our dimension. But if it’s a collapsed warp gate folding into a singularity, I have no idea how long it would take for that transformation to happen.”

“Worst case scenario, it turns into the singularity, how long would we have then?” I pressed.

Zyno sighed and shook his head, “From this distance? No more than a cycle I would imagine, probably less.” He gestured vaguely towards the Jessipie-90 crew, “Their computer systems would tell us for sure once the singularity’s gravity started pulling us in.”

I rubbed at my eyes in a frustrated gesture, “Dammit dude, and I thought we were finally getting on top of things.” I looked back down at Zyno, “What do you think we should do for now?”

Zyno shrugged, “Just keep watching it, obviously. Other than that, maybe start working on a plan B to escape the system without Jessipie-90—the ship has an emergency shuttle, right?”

I waved him off quickly, “Yeah, but the shuttle’s G-drive is busted.”

“Shit, of all the—” He cut himself off and sighed, “At least a G-drive would be way easier to fix than a warp reactor.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “For sure?”

He nodded, “Yeah, but again, we should probably avoid the panic. I’ll keep working on the sensor for Gamma-20, but when that’s done maybe I’ll go work on the shuttle just in case—not like I can help much with the warp reactor anyways.”

“What, by yourself?”

Zyno glared at me, “No, asshole, you’ll obviously be with me for all this.” He smirked then, “Remember what Eve said, the safest place during the mission is beside you.”

I rolled my eyes, “That was when she was right there to protect me and everyone around me.”

Zyno chuckled and shook his head, “I dunno man, it wasn’t Eve who saved me in the engineering bay when those drone forms started attacking.”

I chuckled too, “I’ll be sure to tell her you said that once she breaks free of the void.” I crossed my arms and smiled smugly, “You know she has a real hangup for being disrespected.”

Zyno held up his hands in surrender, “I try to give you a compliment, and you turn it around and say you’re going to send your killer girlfriend after me.”

I looked over when I saw the stories had stopped and people started hugging it all out, gathering up to leave.

I turned back to Zyno, “Whatever, like you said we keep this between us for now, and we’ll keep checking on its progress every day. Hopefully, it’s just Eve, otherwise…”

Zyno smiled brightly, “Otherwise we might not even need to worry about Gamma-20 killing us when the void singularity destroys the entire system.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep