Our group went down to the subbasement together to go talk to Gadow hoping he would let us use their remaining robots. When we got to the warp reactor room, I was surprised to see how different it looked compared to last time.

The large chrome orb had been taken almost completely apart, with parts scattered all over the room, with drawn schematics nearby, and a few tablets projecting holograms showing how the parts fit together.

Durgo, Bryx and Roote were off on their own, each armed and looking like they were working as security, while Gadow and Fierra seemed to be working as assistants for the busy engineers.

When Gadow saw us, he passed off the part he’d been carrying to Num.

“Ah, Zyno, Adam, are you finished with that scanner device?” He asked, making his way over towards us.

Zyno sighed and shook his head, “Unfortunately, I’ve run into a bit of a complication and don’t know how long it would take to complete, so Adam had another idea in the meantime.”

Gadow looked at me suspiciously, “You aren’t going to ask us to break protocol to search the storage sector ourselves, are you?”

I shook my head quickly, “No, I know you wanted proof before we broke your protocols, and I feel it’s fair to honor that arrangement, so I thought we could try something else first.” I held up a finger, “Why not use the last of your robots to search around the tanks? It wouldn’t break any protocols, wouldn’t risk anyone’s life, the only downside would be you might lose the last of your automated workers, but really at this point what are you even saving them for?”

Gadow crossed his arms and tapped a finger against his bicep as he thought it over.

“Well, there isn’t really a reason to keep them all stored away now—not like I was keeping them locked up for any specific reason.” He reasoned.

Fierra made her way over to our group, “What’s this now?”

Gadow turned to his lieutenant, “Adam and Zyno want to us the last of our robots to search the storage sector, try to find their monster without breaking company protocols.”

Fierra shrugged, “Why not? We certainly aren’t using them, no need to for them to keep collecting dust if there’s a use for them.”

“Now there’s a good chance they’ll be destroyed if the Predaoan considers them a threat—thinks they’re invading her nest or territory. There’s no problem with that, right?” I asked.

Gadow smiled, “Considering all the others were destroyed, what’s four more to add to the scrap pile?”

“Excellent, and I assume the robots have audio and visual recording, are they capable of streaming the footage live as well?” Zyno asked.

Gadow nodded, “Yeah we just need to set it up.” He turned to me, “I’ll want to watch the footage with you, see what this Predazoan is doing to my ship—might need to report it in case she’s tampering with the cargo, make sure the crew is cleared of all blame.”

I shrugged, “Sure, that makes sense.” I turned to Zyno, “You going to keep working on your scanner?”

Zyno nodded along, “Might as well, see if I can’t get something working while the robots sweep through the storage sector.” He gestured to Gadow, “You said it would take days to search through all the tanks, right?”

“With only four robots, yes, it might take a while to cover all that ground, and depending how diligently you want them to search, it could take much longer.” Gadow reasoned.

“Maybe a fast sweep first, see if there’s anything obvious, and if we can’t find anything that way they might need to start looking into the tanks themselves.” I said.

Gadow shook his head, “Remember, we can’t break the tank seals without proof.”

I crossed my arms and eyed the captain with a level gaze, “And what counts as proof to you? You’ve seen the drones kill your crew, what more do you need?”

Gadow frowned at me, “I believe your monster is on Jessipie-90, don’t worry about that, but we don’t know it’s hiding in the storage tanks. Remember, we’re still fighting morale here, and if the crew knows their 20 years of service are going to be meaningless after a breach of protocol, you think they’ll still be motivated enough to keep working on that warp reactor?” He pointed at me, “Bring me proof I can justify to my crew and to the company and I’ll let your team into those tanks.”

I sighed but decided not to get after it. Instead, I nodded towards the disassembled warp reactor, “And how’s that going by the way? Any progress?”

Gadow sighed too, “They’re able to dissemble it without breaking anything, so that’s good. But these aren’t warp reactor technicians and expecting them to figure out how to fix something when they don’t even know how the machine works is asking a lot of them.”

Honestly it was a long shot from the start—it would be like asking a car mechanic back on Earth to fix a NASA rocket; maybe it could be done with some rare, genius mechanical talent, but for most people who trained in one specialty, it was unlikely they could transfer those skills over unless they were directly related.

“Maybe you should start having people split their focus to other projects, just a few of them, either trying to get the communications system back online, or to get the emergency shuttle back up and running.” I reasoned.

Fierra eyed me suspiciously, “We had a vote and you seemed to be against the idea of splitting our focus, why the sudden change?”

Because I didn’t know how much time we had left until that warp gate collapsed and turned into a dangerous void singularity that would destroy the entire system, obviously.

Of course I didn’t want to start a panic, and even Zyno couldn’t predict a timeline for the singularity problem, so it was best to keep that information hidden for now.

I held my hands up in surrender, “Look, I’m no leader or captain or anything, my focus is obviously on security, and right now I don’t think we’re very secure, at least until we can confirm what the Predazoan is doing on this ship. Spreading ourselves over multiple projects seems like it might lead to better survival odds, but I can’t make that call for you all.” I nodded to Gadow, “That’s up to the captain.”

Gadow shook his head slowly, “I might be the captain, but we’re on a deep space freighter; the decisions you want me to make would be better left to some military captain or something—someone used to these life-or-death dilemmas.”

Fierra’s expression softened and she put her hand on Gadow’s arm, “Gadow, don’t say that; considering what all we’re dealing with, you’ve been doing a great job so far.”

I nodded once, “We’re all stuck in this impossibly terrible position, but you’ve kept most of your crew alive with minimal information, and you seem to be handling the battle of morale better than any captain I know. Your crew trusts you—we trust you, so we’re willing to follow your decisions.” I insisted.

My confidence seemed to inspire Gadow, and his expression changed to show he was more determined now.

“We’ll have a small group watch the robots’ camera feed as they investigate the storage sector, a small group stay with Zyno while he works on his device, and then the engineers will keep working on the warp reactor for now, at least until one of the other groups makes some headway. After our or Zyno’s group is finished, we’ll start splitting up the engineers to have them work on either the communications system or the emergency shuttle, after a vote with all the crew.” Gadow said.

Fierra nodded along, “Provided the engineers haven’t fixed the warp reactor by then.”

Gadow nodded, then turned back to me, “And what about you, what are your plans for when you find out where your monster is hiding on our ship?”

I let out a deep sigh, not sure at all what we should do about the planetary threat that was sharing a stranded deep space vessel with us, “Honestly, I have no idea. We could take a small team and confront her, but I know that would be incredibly dangerous without proper planning. I guess it depends on how safe the rest of the vessel is then—if we should risk staying away from the monster while we work on getting Jessipie-90 fixed, focusing on just surviving.”

Gadow smirked, “We could leave it up to another vote, let the crew decide if they want to risk breaking protocol and losing contract profits for the sake of security and revenge.”

I smiled too then, “Yeah, revenge for everything you’ve lost at the hands of the Predazoan, I bet that would be a good boost for morale.”

Gadow’s smirk spread to a wide, fanged grin, and he looked between me and Zyno with a clear look of renewed conviction.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get those robots out of storage and put them to work.” He insisted.

***

We had to reorganize the groups then since we were splitting off into three teams. I went with Gadow, Fierra, and Reim (she refused to leave my group for security reasons) who would be watching the robots’ livestreaming while they investigated the storage sector. Zyno, Durgo, Roote, Brunt and Vola would stay in the engineering bay, guarding Zyno while he worked on his device, with Vola a maintenance technician there to assist him. Then of course the rest of the engineers would stay working on the warp reactor for now, Zemman, Num, Saba, Lummy, and Wynana guarded by Bryx, Willa, and Toku.

Gadow led us through the ship over to some maintenance storage closet that held his four remaining robots.

“Here we are.” Gadow announced as he opened the door.

Inside were four surprisingly blocky metal squares that seemed folded into themselves.

I quirked up an eyebrow, “These are your fancy robots?”

Gadow just chuckled, “They’re in sleep mode, obviously.” He said, then pulled out some tablet to activate the robots.

Right away, the squares unfolded their arms and then stood up on spindly legs, then looked towards their master, ready for the next order. The robots all looked the same, a rusty red color, with straight, thin arms and legs, triple-jointed at every bend. Their torso was a solid block that seemed to have several compartments or plugs, probably to interface with the circuitry of the ship. Their faces were also rather plain, large blocks with a small digital screen for a face with an obvious camera in the center.

They were definitely futuristic compared to what we had on Earth, but considering how everything else was so state-of-the-art on Jessipie-90, I guess I was surprised the robots looked so rudimentary—or maybe I just had no idea what I was talking about, and these robots were the peak of efficiency.

Gadow seemed to be managing the orders on his tablet, typing and scrolling away to adjust their parameters I assumed.

“I’m going to send their recorded data to the command center; we can watch them from there. Other than that, I’m going to set the order they’re looking for any anomaly in the storage sector, leaving them open to investigate anything they find out of place.” Gadow explained, and then with one final press seemed to complete the order.

The robot’s eye lights flashed blue, and then they turned and started marching away from us.

“Come on, we should get over to the command center quickly so we can keep watch.” Gadow insisted, leading us back into the heart of Jessipie-90.

“If it takes days for the robots to make their way around the storage sector, are we going to have a group watch at all times, or put a pause on their search?” I asked.

“We can put them back into sleep mode when we retire for the day.” Fierra said, then turned to me with a scaly eyebrow ridge raised, “Why, worried we’ll miss something?”

“Obviously that’s a concern; I don’t think you people understand how subtle and secretive these creatures can be—how dangerous they are.” I insisted.

Gadow sighed, “Adam, we watched as the Predazoan drones ripped through one of our crewmembers, we absolutely understand how dangerous they are.” He turned to me, “If the robots don’t find anything on their first sweep, we can just send them through the ship again—and a third time even, if that will convince you.”

I wasn’t sure what I was more concerned about now, our timeline with the collapsing warp gate, or missing Gamma-20 on the robot livestream and never learning where she was hiding, keeping us in a vulnerable position all the while.

Part of me wanted to tell Gadow about the collapsing warp gate so maybe he would make sure all his crewmembers were moving with haste and purpose, but I knew it could cause a panic, and considering his fight with morale, and didn’t think it would be smart to drop that on him until we were sure it was going to fold into a singularity.

The Jessipie-90 crew wasn’t sluggish after all, it wasn’t like they were wasting time, but they were working quickly because they knew they were in danger so long as they remained on the ship, not because they were fighting against a limited timeline.

“Well, hopefully we’ll know where the Predazoan is hiding after the first sweep, and if not maybe Zyno will have his scanner finished by then.” I said.

We made it to the command center and Gadow put each of the robots’ livestreams on some hover monitor, and we each sat down to watch over one. I saw the robots move through the ship, down through the regular basement maintenance shaft, and then up some stairway into a huge bay with some bulkhead doors.

Gadow pointed to the screen, “That’s the compressor system, turns the filtered particulates into complete crystals, then they’re transferred into the storage tanks.” He explained.

“And where’s the filtration system that brings the particulates inside the ship?” I asked.

“It’s mostly outside the ship; a series of vacuum tubes transport the particulates to the compression system—can’t really see it from in here.” Fierra said.

“You can go into the subbasement to see part of the filtration system, it’s where we perform maintenance on the system from the safety of the ship—dislodge blockages if needed, reset the vacuum parameters, that sort of thing.” Gadow added.

“You said the automated workforce used to do most of that work, right?” I pressed.

Gadow nodded along, “The robots did almost all the maintenance work on Jessipie-90, we spent most of our time adjusting their orders or output making sure they were functioning properly, only had to get involved ourselves for critical maintenance issues.”

“So who’s been maintaining those systems since the robots were all destroyed?”

Fierra shook her head, “The filtration and compression systems don’t need maintenance after we shut down them down; once the mission was confirmed complete and the tanks were all sealed and we were ready to go home, maintenance was no longer required over there.” She clarified.

“The maintenance we’ve been doing around the ship on our own lately is for the living systems—making sure everything we need to stay alive on the ship is still functioning.” Gadow added.

Reim turned to me, her face scrunched up in a thoughtful frown, “Why so curious?”

I shrugged, “Wondering if that’s how Gamma-20 got into Jessipie-90, through the filtration system or something. And if the robots haven’t needed to perform maintenance on those systems for some time, that really seems like an obvious reason why she’s been able to remain hidden for so long—undisturbed in her work with those crystals or whatever the fuck she’s doing.” I reasoned.

Everyone grew silent then as we watched the robots head through some large, secured doorway that seemed to be two interlocking airlocks crossing over each other. Once they were through that obstacle, the way opened up to reveal two long rows of entryways, one on top of the other. The metal grated rows were so long, I couldn’t actually see how many entryways there were.

“How many sectors are there?” I asked.

“20 sectors—two rows of ten.” Gadow answered.

Only 20, and yet the entryway was so large, the sectors themselves must’ve been massive.

We watched then as the four robots split apart into different sectors, and from there we watched our separate screens to view the livestream.

No surprise but it was incredibly boring to watch; the sectors were just super long hallways with grated metal walkways with absolutely massive storage tanks on either side. The main tanks themselves looked to be a hundred feet tall, probably that wide as well, fitted into blocky housing sections. They each had large doors in the center that looked like bank vault doors, with some extra security locking mechanisms all around the doorway. There was also a single bar over the door that looked like it had been welded in place—the seal to prove the vault hadn’t been opened.

“How many storage tanks are there in each row?” I asked.

“50,000.” Gadow answered automatically.

My eyebrows shot up, “50,000? Holy shit, how many—”

“A million total.” Fierra added.

Well, no wonder they warned me it would take days to search through them all—even longer if we had to actually go inside the tanks and look around. We probably wouldn’t even have time for it unless everyone split up, and then of course we’d all be way too vulnerable.

I watched my screen as the robot walked down the hallway at a steady pace; everything was rather dark with small strips of lighting on the walkway, but the robot had some flashlight to illuminate everything in his field of view. The robot was diligent in his search, looking methodically back and forth between the tankers it passed, making sure not to miss any corners, but he never slowed down while he walked—moving and searching faster than a person ever could.

“Hey, Adam, where did the name ‘Gamma-20’ come from?” Reim suddenly asked.

I turned to look at her from my chair, “What’s that now?”

Reim gestured to me, “That’s the name you’ve given the Predazoan on our ship, right? Where did the name come from?” She asked.

“Oh that.” I turned back to watch my screen, “I don’t really know where the names come from, but every time we’ve gone to hunt one, they’ve given us a designation like that. So far, I’ve been on missions hunting Gamma-17, Gamma-12, and Beta-09. Now the mission we’re on is for Gamma-20—according to our commanders.”

“Seems like the numbers jump around a bit. You think that means there’s been 20 of these monsters that’ve been discovered, or 20 that have been hunted?” Gadow inquired.

I shrugged, “No idea, for all the intel I’ve been given, there’s just the four. Pretty sure our commanders want to keep all that information confidential and compartmentalized.”

“You think there’s other specialty teams that’ve hunted the others?” Reim asked.

“Maybe, but we’re not allowed to know about any other operations they’ve got going on.” I said, trying to brush their curiosity aside so I wouldn’t have to lie too much.

“And what about your team? What other specialty threats have you contained besides the Predazoans?” Reim pressed.

I sighed, “I told you guys, those missions are confidential.”

“Oh, come on, it’s just us here—we’re part of the team now, all in this mess together.” Gadow insisted.

“Please Adam? Just tell us one other mission, please?” Reim said, almost sounding desperate.

I sighed again, knowing I’d have to make something up from scratch at this point.

“Alright, alright fine, but you seriously can’t tell anyone about this—not your other crewmembers, and definitely not my teammates, otherwise I could be court-martialed for breaking confidentiality protocols.” I insisted.

Reim smiled brilliantly, “We promise.” She nodded along, then looked to Gadow and Fierra, “Right? We all promise.”

“We promise.” Gadow and Fierra said together, both seeming rather excited too.

I couldn’t help but smile at their enthusiasm, “Fine, let’s see…” I stroked my beard as I thought of a good story to tell, something I would know the details inside and out in case they had any questions.

“Ah, I got it. I’ll tell you guys about this time me and a small team of rebels destroyed a secret weapon designed to annihilate entire planets, something its inventors called the Death Star…”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep