After three full days locked up in our quarters tearing into each other, we finally decided it was time to leave and spend a little time around other people. Eve and I had lunch with some of our friends, Kianna, Tillia, Zyno and Yun, filling them in on Eve’s debriefing with the Lord Generals.

Same as me, they were all irritated high-command blamed Eve for every protocol breach, and same as Eve they thought the Lord Generals were all fools to already work on getting me out of the picture.

We didn’t have any other orders except for me to finish my mission reports, so Eve helped me knock those out quickly. It was surprisingly mundane, writing out what happened day-to-day on Vyrane, and condensing it all made it seem so inconsequential. Lives ended down there, and yet everything could be neatly summarized in just a few dozen pages to be submitted and then forgotten. It certainly wasn’t cathartic or healing, not like journaling my experiences like Doctor Jumomo suggested, instead it almost seemed to dimmish them.

We spent another few aimless days around The Radiance, completing some of our scheduled training as well with the trainers we had before in more simulations, but after being down planet-side in the middle of a real military operation, it made the sims all seem like a joke from that point. Still, the training was all required and backlogged, so we needed to get it done when we could, otherwise we’d probably end up in another disciplinary meeting.

Inbetween training and spending time with our friends, I also submitted several requests for a meeting with the Lord Generals. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to say to them, let them know they couldn’t get rid of me maybe, but after denying my first request they just ignored all the others after.

Despite being the handler to the most important mission asset, the Lord Generals clearly didn’t consider me relevant at all, and it was obvious they were going to keep working to get me out of the picture so they would have Eve all controlled on their own.

After a cycle passed since we returned from Vyrane, we were summoned for a meeting to go over the details of our next mission.

“Can’t believe we’ve already got another target, seems like that’s so soon.” I said mildly as we rode along the moving walkway down the hallway, both of us dressed in our comfortable day clothes as usual—me in my t-shirt, sweatpants and hoodie, Eve in her casual space clothes, a black and purple silken sweater dress that hugged her outrageous figure.

Eve had her arms wrapped around my waist and nuzzled her head into my chest, “Don’t be so surprised, I have a feeling things will be moving much faster from now on—won’t be getting extended breaks between missions any longer.” She said.

I looked down at her face, “Why do you say that?”

Eve just shrugged, then hugged tighter against me, “Multiple reasons; for one, enough time has passed my sisters will be establishing themselves with their nests, probably easier to track now. Aside from that we surely already have a backlog of targets and locations to check, even for the ones being more cautious and remaining camouflaged.”

I nodded along, “Right, I remember when we first came aboard The Radiance, the commanders told us they were able to track down roughly half of the Predazoans when they exited void space to at least the system they entered, maybe even the planet for a few.”

“Strike while the iron is hot, as the saying goes.” Eve added.

I put my arm around Eve and trailed my fingers along her back, “You think it’s smarter to move quickly to the next available target as fast as we can, or should we wait so we can respond to more important threats—like with Vyrane nearly getting taken over?”

“I can see the reasoning for both options; we wait around too long and risk the Predazoans overtaking more planets, maybe even some reaching perfection. On the other hand, if they send us out on some long campaign, we might miss a more time sensitive or critical mission.” Eve looked up at me, “Either way, I would have no idea how our fool commanders are choosing our targets, no pattern at all I can discern.”

I started ticking off fingers, “Entana was a valuable core world, but Gamma-17 wasn’t making much of a mess, so maybe they just chose that planet since our sensors were able to totally confirm she was there. Gamma-12 was pretty quiet in the Holistia Nebula, but they were concerned we’d lose her since there was so much interplanetary travel through that system—worried we’d never be able to find her again. Of course, Vyrane makes total sense; Beta-09 was going to overtake an entire planet—couldn’t dick around with that one.”

Eve leaned forward to nibble on my arm, “No need to speculate now, let’s see what’s going on with this mission before we get too far ahead of ourselves.”

I pulled my arm away from Eve, “Hey, no biting.”

Eve grabbed my arm and started nibbling on my hand again, “I want to bite.”

I took my hand away once more and flicked her on the nose, “You can’t always get what you want.”

With a hair-tentacle, Eve guided my hand forward and started sucking on my finger, being quite suggestive with it, “Ish thish okay?” She slurred.

I rolled my eyes, “Rather you bite me than do…that.”

Eve trilled a cute little giggle, “Why, too stimulating—too arousing?”

I pulled away and tugged on her hair-tentacle in a scolding manner, “Absolutely, and don’t even try

to pretend that’s not what you’re doing.”

Eve reached over, trying to get under the waistband of my pants, “I can always take care of it before we get to the meeting you know.”

I looked around to see the hallway was surprisingly empty as we rode along the moving walkway.

“Fuck it, yeah let’s do it.”

Eve’s eyes lit up, “Really?” She asked, freeing my dick without a moment’s hesitation.

I shrugged, “Why not? I’m tired of playing along with the Lord Generals’ rules. Might as well have some fun.” I looked down at Eve as she got to work, taking my breath away, “And really, what more can they even do to punish us now?”

Eve nodded her agreement, but her mouth was too busy to properly respond.

***

No surprise we were late for the meeting, but of course the detour was worth it. Eve and I strolled into the conference room trying to keep our giggles under control as we moved to the back of the surprisingly small room around a large long-table.

“Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with us.” Commander Durgo growled from the front of the room, his voice modulator over his insectoid face always able to portray his irritation despite the voice sounding so digitized.

I looked at the handful of people around us, “Is this really it?”

We’d been to several debriefings and meetings over the course of the mission, and most had been in large command centers with an almost excessive audience. Here, there were eight people including us.

Commander Durgo and Lieutenant Bryx were up in front of the table, and before them were Agent Roote, the living-rock alien who’d been with us on the Holistia Nebula mission, along with some female alien marine I didn’t recognize. She was a rather large woman, very muscular and built up like some amazonian, a foot taller than me, with black skin that looked scaly, and an almost monstrous face; she had three blue eyes arranged in a triangle pointing inward, with a bald head that had several spikey ridges, and a mouth that had sharp pronged mandibles hidden behind several long tentacles that started where her nose should’ve been, draping down to the top of her chest—like a classic Cthulhu creature. Towards the middle of the table there was Zyno who was throwing me a smirk—known for his habitual tardiness, he was clearly amused he beat us to the meeting. On the other side of Zyno was Doctor Hennor, another classic alien with bright blue skin and a weirdly bulbous head like a lightbulb, he’d been with us on the Vyrane mission.

Durgo glowered at me with those four red slits for eyes, “If you’d been paying attention to the updates from high-command, you’d know we’re keeping things much more compartmentalized; debriefing for deploy teams will now only consist of the teams themselves; operations are going to be working with a strict need-to-know basis from now on.”

I looked around at the others in the room, “Seriously, this is all we have? We barely made it back from Vyrane with a group five times this size and just a handful survived.”

Zyno looked over at me, “What, you think you need more than my expertise to take out another Predazoan?”

I gestured towards him, “More like I’m worried you won’t be able to survive the mission without proper support.”

Bryx shook his wooly head, his trunk wiggly with him as though to accentuate his point, “This mission will be different from our time on Vyrane; we’re going back to stealth tactics, need a smaller infiltration team to blend in.” He assured me.

Durgo activated his tablet to project a hologram of some star system, “We’d prefer if you’d hold all your brilliant complaints until after the debriefing.”

Eve growled low in her throat, “Watch it…” She threatened.

I noticed Eve had started getting more defensive over disrespect lately, even towards me. Sure, she was always prideful and wouldn’t tolerate insults against her (how dare those lowly people disrespect such a godly being), but she had been taking insults against me rather personally too. I wasn’t sure if it had to do with our time on Vyrane and what Almana did, making Eve more protective over how people treated us as a couple, or if it was because the Lord Generals were already trying to edge me out as her handler and wanted it clear she wouldn’t tolerate that—wouldn’t accept anyone disrespecting me or my role in the mission, or maybe just my role as her boyfriend.

Whatever the reason, I couldn’t help but admit I really enjoyed it; it was always important to have your partner’s back, but Eve was taking it to a totally different level.

I leaned over and kissed her on the check, “Thanks babe.”

She smiled at me, “Of course, darling.”

“May I continue?” Durgo asked, looking beyond irritated now.

Eve waved at him dismissively, and he just sighed in response—his voice modulator hissing it out.

“We’ve been tracking Gamma-20 in the Derrion System with our long-range sensors all the way back from the destruction of NX-947b, after the Predazoans escaped through void space.” Durgo pressed a button and the hologram split apart showing zoomed in shots of a couple solar orbits and some gas giants, “It’s a rather derelict system, no habitable planets, but it’s incredibly resource rich. Still, we’ve monitored Gamma-20 all the while, drifting through space along regular orbital pathways.” The hologram changed to show a highlighted orbit through a binary star system.

“Gamma-20 appeared to be in some kind of stasis, staying far away from any other organic lifeforms, benignly orbiting through the system.” Bryx added.

“However, less than two cycles ago—while our teams were planet-side on Vyrane, we lost all trace of Gamma-20 on our long-rang scanners, and then a few days later a distress beacon went out from the deep space freighter, Jessipie-90.” Durgo explained, and the hologram changed once more to show a massive, bulky and blocky spaceship in the middle of nowhere.

Zyno leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, “The idea, I assume, Gamma-20 is the cause of the distress beacon?”

Bryx nodded, “The deep space vessel was actually about to return home after a projected 20-year tour; it opened a warp gate, but it quickly destabilized and fried their warp reactors, leaving them stranded in the system.”

“Warp gates can be destabilized?” I pressed, worried I was about to discover another new space fear.

Zyno looked back at me, “A rare event, but incredibly dangerous; if the gate collapses into itself, it’ll cause a reflection of dark matter radiation that can damage or even destroy some vessels. Worst case scenario, the gate collapses and folds into itself, then solidifies into a singularity that will eventually erupt into…” He tilted his head back and forth, “Basically, it’s like a temporary black hole that eventually explodes when it reaches critical mass with the dark matter radiation. That shit can destroy planets even, disrupt an entire solar system.”

My eyes nearly popped out of my head, “What? And we risk opening those gates when that’s a possibility?”

Eve leaned her head on my shoulder, “Statistically, it’s so rare it’s not even considered a possibility, more like a random phenomenon.” She looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes, “The chances of them occurring without external factors is so close to zero it’s almost negligible at that point—a mathematical error.”

“But it still can happen. And what does that mean ‘without external factors’?” I pressed.

“A warp reactor can be sabotaged to make the event more likely, weakening the structural energy reactions required to open a stable warp gate. Pirates have tried using destabilized gates as weapons in the past, but it’s so unreliable and volatile, only the dumbest or most desperate ever try it.” Zyno added.

Hennor held up a small blue finger to interject, “Although, research has suggested a warp gate is more likely to be destabilized if its within relative proximity of a previous unstable gate, whether it went critical or not.” He said in his gentle, demure tone.

“What kind of proximity are we talking?” I asked.

“Approximately one light year.” Hennor answered.

I looked up at Durgo, “And we’re planning on warping into the system that just had a destabilized gate? Are we running back-to-back suicide missions now or something?” I demanded.

“Your courage inspires us all.” Durgo said in a flat tone, then briefed a quick glance at Eve when she started growling, then just sighed and moved on quickly, “It’s our belief Gamma-20 waited for a warp gate to open and then caused the destabilization herself, purposefully stranding the vessel.”

I looked over at Eve, “You guys can do that?”

She shrugged, “Don’t see why not; considering we can open warp gates, makes sense we could half-ass it to create a destabilized one.”

“Sounds like a risky maneuver, just like the pirates who try doing that; no guarantee a Predazoan could survive a destabilized warp gate singularity if things went worst-case scenario.” Zyno reasoned.

Eve smirked, “You’d be surprised what we can survive.”

Before we could continue down another tangent, Bryx cleared his throat loudly, “Let’s get through this debrief first, then we can talk about random theoreticals.”

Everyone settled back down, and Bryx gestured for Durgo to continue.

Several more holograms appeared before us, all depicting the deep space vessel from various angles, including some blueprints or scientific specs, “After the initial distress beacon went out, some days later more distress beacons were sent, obviously all coded and with limited information, but the next few signals indicated there’d been some mysterious deaths and disappearances on the vessel. Since the initial distress signal, six crew members have either been killed or are missing. Naturally, we suspect Gamma-20 is responsible.” Durgo explained.

The large marine woman up front raised her three-fingered hand, “Any particular reason no one has responded to the beacon in almost two cycles?” She asked, her voice deep and gruff but surprisingly feminine.

Durgo nodded once, “Our deep space sensor contained it, blocking it at the source from reaching anyone else.”

I rolled my eyes, “Oh here we go…”

Durgo fixed me with a flat glare, but continued with his explanation, “We’ve been closely monitoring the situation from the updates Jessipie-90

has been sending out with their daily distress beacons; their life support is still functional, no concern over supplies, and the deaths have been spaced out evenly, looking like Gamma-20 is being careful not to overwhelm the crew all at once.”

“She’s probably keeping them around as bait, hoping a rescue vessel will come soon, and she’ll probably attack them and consume that crew before she gets rid of all her bait.” Eve explained.

Agent Roote looked over at Eve, “Why not just kill the whole crew and assimilate them, use those puppets to reel in rescue vehicles and assimilate them too?”

Eve leaned forward, steepling her fingers under her chin—looking really cute with a thoughtful frown on her face, “She must be conserving the biomass, being careful with it—maybe needs the crew alive for some reason.” She looked up at Durgo, “What’s Jessipie-90’s cargo?”

Durgo pressed a button on his tablet, and a new hologram appeared, “Khrona crystals.”

Everyone groaned as though the answer was obvious.

The crystal looked rather plain, a random assortment of dark colors, but inside it seemed like there was some iridescent fire roiling around erratically.

“Of course.” Zyno shook his head.

I sighed, “Anyone want to explain things for the idiot from planet Earth?”

Eve swatted my shoulder and threw me a cute pout, “Don’t insult my favorite boy.”

Zyno turned back to me, “Khrona crystals are probably the single most valuable resource in the Empire; they power void shielding and warp reactors—they’re what allow ships to travel through void space.” He looked at Eve and nodded, “I know the Predazoans are all about consuming biomass, but I’d hazard a guess they could find some use for khrona crystals too, right?”

Eve waved it off, “Yes yes, we could drain them of their void energy, then supercharge any accumulated biomass.” She looked to me, “Gamma-20’s supremacy drive is probably directing her to take a form of raw void energy, rather than some unique combination of biomass.”

Roote crossed his arms as he thought it over, “Maybe she’s leaving people on the vessel alive until she absorbs the energy from the crystals first.”

Eve shrugged, “I have no idea what she’s thinking; for all I know, she might have no interest in the people and only kills when they get in her way while working with the crystals. That, or maybe she needs to keep some balance between absorbed energy and consumed biomass.” She sighed, sounding frustrated, “Honestly, I can’t even begin to guess what she’s planning with this.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “Really, this is so strange for a Predazoan?”

Eve gestured towards Zyno, “Like he said, we’re all about consuming biomass. Void energy is how we control or manipulate our biomass, it’s our spirit or soul, never thought it could join with our physical form too—if that’s what Gamma-20 is planning.”

I looked up at the hologram, “So what exactly are these crystals? Why are they so special?”

Zyno stood up and walked over towards the hologram, “Khrona crystals are rare and hard to harvest as it takes so much time for them to mature, and that’s why those freighters are out for years at a time.” He pulled out his tablet, and a hologram of a black hole joined the khrona crystal, “Despite what most people think, there’s one thing that can escape the event horizon of a black hole, and that’s dark matter radiation.” He gestured towards the weird light ring around the black hole, “As a black hole consumes light, the dark matter radiation is actually repelled from the black hole, where it’ll drift endlessly though space. Over time, the radiation will stabilize and eventually solidify into tiny particulates.” He moved the holograms around to show the freighter, gesturing to some massive tubes along the side of the bulky vessel, “These freighters go out into deep space where there isn’t life or even much travel, and they just drift around sucking up all the undisturbed particulates. Then, they’re placed in a super-compressor that puts absolutely insane amounts of pressure on them, forcing them to converge. After several cycles in the super-compressor, you’ll have yourself a complete crystal filled with pure dark matter energy. That energy is then used to power all the shit we need for void space travel.” He clicked off his holograms, “Without them, it would be impossible.”

“And they’re super rare too, right? No other way to harvest them, just takes time for them to mature and shit?” I reasoned.

“Exactly, and that’s why this is our next priority; this is one of the biggest freighters and one of the longer tours, and projections show they hold enough khrona crystals to power warp travel for the entire Empire for over 200 years.” Durgo explained.

“The estimated value of the cargo is 8.2 quintillion credits.” Bryx added.

Holy shit, how many zeroes was that? And they threw a fit over the collateral damage in the Holistia Nebula when it was just a few hundred trillion.

“Oh, fuck me…” Zyno put his head in his hands, looker greener than usual.

“The only reason we’ve waited this long in sending a team out is to continue gathering intelligence, confirm it was a Predazoan causing the trouble; we didn’t want to risk getting involved with their tour if it turned out to be a false alarm.” Bryx explained.

“To put it bluntly, if the Vyrane mission and this mission would’ve been available at the same time, Adam and Eve would’ve been sent to the Derrion System first.” Durgo added.

I threw my hands up in the air, “Over a few lousy credits, seriously? More value in money than in lives, is that it?”

Durgo fixed his four eyes on me, “Make no mistake, Agent Adam, fulfilling the Empire’s need for the energy required to sustain us for two centuries is more valuable than a dozen planets.”

I was about to bark out a scathing remark, but Eve put a hand on my shoulder and massaged it a little, calming me down quickly.

~Not the time, darling~ She vibrated to me.

Durgo pressed a button and the holograms changed to show another spaceship and a list of our undercover profiles, “Now that we’ve told you all the basics of the mission, let’s go over the operational details.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep