Volume 5: Gamma-20, Chapter 5.17

I was glad we were free for the rest of the day, but honestly I just wanted to crash. However, I figured it would be good to get a lay of the land inside

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, plus it would be a good thing to get more facetime with their crew, build that trust so we could all properly work together.

Same as while working, Gadow insisted everyone stay in groups of at least four, but for the most part we all stuck together as the

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crew gave us a tour over their recreational and relaxation options aboard the massive space freighter.

Outside the core command center there were other, auxiliary control systems, then a few supplies centers, and then outside that was the first ring of private quarters.

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had an interested setup, with the important command related rooms in the center with multiple access points all around, then there was a section all dedicated to living space in a ring that wrapped all around that main control area (would make getting to work rather easy), and then outside the ring with all the crew rooms there was another connected sector for all the recreational and relaxation spots, partially a ring, but it branched out a bit to give them plenty of room, some places being separated by levels you might need to take stairs or a lift to reach. Then of course beyond that there were more maintenance systems, different computer networks, the med bay, more engineering centers or equipment bays, regular storage, the automated workforce charging hold and repair center, and then things branched off into the massive network dedicated to working the khrona crystals—the filtration systems, super compression units, and then of course the huge storage tanks that took of the majority of space on

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.

There was also the basement and subbasement, but that was all dedicated to maintenance sections and the internal workings of all the main systems.

The vessel really was large but considering how much space was taken up for the khrona crystals, all the other areas were pretty condensed, and I was hopeful I might actually be able to find my way around the place without getting lost in just a matter of days.

The

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crew showed us around the living quarters ring, and while they all had private quarters before, they moved more cots into some of the rooms so even at night no one would be in a group of less than four. We all worked together on pulling out a few more mattresses from some of the vacant rooms and put them in the new community rooms, splitting our team up so nobody would feel overcrowded at night. Thankfully, the rooms really were spacious, every bit as large as me and Eve’s apartment back on

The Radiance

, so I didn’t think comfort would be a problem.

No communal showers thankfully, but people were still sharing the private bathrooms in the living quarters; they were spacious, luxurious, offered the option to take either a shower or bath, and it would be the only time anyone would be alone on the ship—people weren’t so desperate yet they were willing to give up that level of privacy.

Made me wonder if Gamma-20 could use that time to assimilate anyone though.

Once everyone’s beds and rooms were set up, the tour continued to the recreation area, and I had to say it reminded me of the vacation stations in the Holistia Nebula since there was so much to do—would definitely make working the 20-year tour more than just comfortable.

They had four simulation bays, and these were so state of the art they even had these robotic frames inside that would allow the simulations to have physical components—still not magic like the Star Trek Holodeck, but it was a short step closer compared to the pure virtual simulations aboard

The Radiance

. They had a massage and spa center managed by some robotic arms, a huge gym with all manner of workout equipment including a gravity chamber (you could increase the gravity for a tougher workout, or release the gravity to relax and float around), there was a sports center with adjustable equipment that could transform so you could play hundreds of different sports, either against another person or play with some computerized opponents. They had a huge media center that was a mix of a movie theater with huge comfortable lounge chairs that could fit the whole crew, along with private viewing sections in case you wanted to watch TV or play virtual games (like video games, but more futuristic) on your own. There was a robot bar that served actual alcohol and could create any crazy combination of mixed drinks, plus there was a sound system with the option to play holograms so you could make it seem like there was a live band playing music. There was a huge digital library with unlimited reading material, a relaxation center you could listen to music, there was karaoke, a pool and sauna, some hobby center for crafts and creativity, even a fucking nox-lounge where you could smoke that refined nitrous laughing gas.

They definitely had more recreational options than

The Radiance

, only thing was you couldn’t order any more supplies—no way to shop out in deep space. Still, I could honestly see the appeal in taking such a peaceful job away from everything when the company was so dedicated to comfort, and once we were free from the Empire, I wouldn’t mind looking into a contract for me and Eve work.

Of course we’d need to figure out what qualifications we’d need; I wasn’t sure if they would accept human paramedic or Predazoan handler for my work history.

After they showed us around, we all ended up at the bar together and had a few drinks to unwind. I picked some mixed drink that was safe for my mammalian biology, but it honestly tasted like straight-up gasoline with a mild fruity aftertaste. Apparently the food synthesizers weren’t the only system that went down; while the flavor ingredients were all synthesized, there’s some base sugar store that’s constantly multiplied and fermented so the crew had a renewable source of alcohol. Unfortunately, the fermentation got a little screwy when the system went down, and now the alcohol content was all over the place.

Downside it tasted terrible, but on the plus side if your aim was to get drunk it would do the job surprisingly well.

Once everyone had a drink in hand we made our way over to the media room and we all decided to gather together in the main theater room to watch a movie together, some romantic story about a space pirate who fell in love with the captain of an Imperial military warship.

I was glad everyone was able to relax, managing stress was critical in these tense situations, but I couldn’t help but think about Eve, and it distracted me from really focusing on the movie; every scene reminded me of her—all the love, the adventures, the danger. I felt an ache in my chest from her absence, while life somehow felt muted without her there beside me. It was dreadful.

I was towards the back of the theater next to Zyno, completely zoned out and in my own head when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Outside, Durgo wants to go over everything we’ve learned.” Roote whispered, then nodded for me to bring Zyno along.

Together with Roote, Zyno and I snuck out of the little theater, and since the

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crew were all either half-asleep or half-drunk, it was much easier than I thought it would be.

Back outside the media rooms in the halls of

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, I saw Durgo talking with Bryx and Willa, looking rather heated over something.

Once he saw we were all there, Durgo turned to us with his little beetle eyes all narrowed.

“Report” His voice modulator hissed.

I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall, “You wanna shelve the attitude there asshole; we’re all in the same sinking ship together.”

Durgo bristled up like he was about to start something, but Bryx put a hand on his shoulder to reign him in, “Durgo, enough.” He looked over towards Zyno and nodded, “How are things looking with their warp reactor, any idea if you can help fix it?”

Zyno sighed and shook his head, “My specialty’s in theoretical biology, I’ve only dabbled with engines, drives and reactors to satisfy passing curiosity; that warp reactor is beyond my limited engineering knowledge. As I told the others, I’d have to take the whole thing apart to try and figure out how it works, and there’s no guarantee of success with that—unlikely I’d even be able to put it back together.” He shrugged, “Honestly, I’ll help how I can, but I’m pretty sure our fate will rest in the hands of the real engineers.”

I waved over to Durgo and Roote, “What about you guys, any luck with the communications systems?”

Durgo looked like he would breathe fire at me if he could—no idea why he was in an even worse mood now; maybe the hopelessness of the situation was getting to him.

“Most standard deep space distress beacons are coded so they can’t be intercepted by non-Imperial vessels; this allows them to cross vast reaches of space securely, while also limiting the information they carry.” Roote started explaining, clearly not in a mood like Durgo was, “For the most part, those signals can only offer their location, status of movement, any downed critical systems, plus injuries or deaths; more information than that simply can’t be sent through the codes, it’s just not how they work.”

Zyno nodded along, “Meaning we can’t change the distress signal to let

The Radiance

know we’re stranded on

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now too.”

“Exactly.” Durgo all but growled, “And since our deep space probe is containing those signals within the Derrion System, there’s no chance of us sending the signal out to anyone else.”

I threw my hands out, “Seriously, so as far as

The Radiance

is concerned, any distress signal that comes from the

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would be same as all the rest, and they’ll keep blocking them all to make sure no one else gets close to our Predazoan target?”

Bryx sighed, “That would seem to be the case.”

Willa looked between Roote and Durgo, “Any chance of getting around the probe blocking the distress signal?”

Roote shook his head, “We’d have to rewire and recode the signal so it would seem like it’s coming from a new source, but again, with the limited information a deep space distress code contains,

The Radiance

might just think it’s

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reworking their communications system in the attempt to get their signal out there since it seemed to go unanswered for so long. It’s possible

The Radiance

will just block that new signal too.”

“Don’t you think they’d be curious why they rewired the code, try to investigate it somehow, maybe even attempt to get in touch with us or something?” I reasoned.

Durgo nodded once, “That’s a possibility, but there’s no guarantee they’d treat it like that; high-command doesn’t want information on

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getting out across the Empire, so they might just immediately block the signal to mitigate that risk.” He explained.

“Shouldn’t command be expecting to hear from us anyways? Wouldn’t they think it’s strange we haven’t gotten in contact with them yet?” Zyno asked.

Bryx shook his head, “Deep space mission protocols are different; it’s normal to go extended periods of time without contacting your base.” He looked over at Durgo and nodded, “We can’t go expecting

any

response from

The Radiance

at this point.”

“Agreed.” Durgo said flatly.

I scratched at my beard as I thought over our options, “Seems like trying to work on the communications system will lead to a dead-end.” I looked over at Zyno, “Better focus on getting the warp reactor fixed.”

“But if they can’t get it fixed, or worse they break it beyond repair, doesn’t that mean we’ll be totally stuck out here? Wouldn’t it be better to fix the comms and at least gamble the chance we can use them to get more assistance.” Willa reasoned.

Zyno tilted his head back and forth, “Reworking a communications system would be a much simpler process, doubt we could break it beyond repair either.”

I rubbed at my eyes in a frustrated gesture, “Shit, maybe we actually should be splitting our attention between the two projects…” I grumbled mostly to myself.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up to see Bryx beside me, “Adam, have you worked out any more theories on what you think Gamma-20 might be planning?”

“Yeah, you were asking that doctor all the question, what exactly do you think is going on?” Zyno pressed.

I sighed, “All I’ve got is a couple theories as to what happened so far, don’t know how much that’ll help with what all Gamma-20 might do in the future.”

“As the Predazoan handler, I’d say you’re in a better position of understanding our enemy better than anyone, so I think it would be best for you to share what you’re thinking.” Roote added.

I looked around at the team to see everyone looking at me with obvious interest, a little intimidating since nothing I knew was real, concrete data.

“Right.” I took in a deep breath, then let it out twice as slow, “As far as I can tell, Gamma-20 is definitely more interested in the crystals, and for some reason she seems to want to keep the crew alive. There might be a few people who’ve been assimilated and are spying for her, but there’s no way the entire crew is.”

Durgo crossed his arms, “Your reasoning?”

I glared at him, wondering if he was just being an asshole and doubting everything I said, or was actually trying to work through the info like a good agent, “No reason to save us and keep us alive for one; if she assimilated the whole crew, she would’ve just assimilated us. With that in mind, it’s reasonable to believe she’s kept most of the crew alive for some similar reason; she needs us alive and in control, maybe for the way we work and think, maybe because there could be something keeping the crystals secure that even a Predazoan can’t work around.”

Durgo nodded, “That’s reasonable.”

I turned back to the rest of the group and started using my hands to help illustrate the point, “So, my thinking is Gamma-20 got into the ship somehow and damaged the warp reactor, then when shit started going south, she took the opportunity to disable the automated workforce so she could move through

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.” I told them.

“How do you think she did that?” Roote asked.

I held up a finger, “I’ll bet she was inside one of the crewmembers, possibly the chief medical officer. Once she was done with him, she burst out of him—having consumed his organs and was puppeteering him from the inside—and then moved on to other crewmembers.”

“Shit, you don’t think he was just assimilated, you think he was being totally controlled by Gamma-20?” Zyno asked.

“Do you think he knew that, was it possible Gamma-20 was trying to hide inside the doctor?” Bryx asked.

I shrugged, “Maybe, but so far it seems Gamma-20’s focus is definitely on the khrona crystals, that’s why I think she’s limiting how much biomass she’s consuming.”

“And she’s really only killed people who were working to get

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back up and working, so clearly she wants the ship stranded out here.” Durgo added.

“Exactly.” I nodded.

Zyno shook his head, “Wait, no, the doctor wasn’t going to help get

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operational again, he was working on some tests to see if people had suffered any side effects from the dark matter radiation.”

“If the doctor was under her control at that point, maybe the tests were actually for her sake, see who would be beneficial to assimilate—or who to stay away from if it reacted strangely to the crystals.” Roote reasoned.

I held my hands up to halt the debate, “Either way, it seems like Gamma-20 was really limiting herself, maybe even staying in a small larval form while she remained inside the first few victims, puppeteering them while only consuming minimal amounts of biomass.” I clarified.

“Your reasoning is sound, but as you said even if we know what Gamma-20 did before, it doesn’t seem to help us determine what she’s going to do next.” Durgo said, gesturing towards me with one hand, “You’re sure you have no what she might be doing with the khrona crystals?”

I shrugged, “Not at all; from what Eve’s told me, Predazoans are a huge collection of biomass controlled by a hivemind consciousness, but they have some extradimensional spirit or soul that exists in the void or some other deep dimension that allows them to do all that wildly impossible shit—stuff I would call straight-up magic. Maybe for Gamma-20, her supremacy drive has her focusing on that void spirit, rather than some unique biomass form.”

Zyno crossed his arms and nodded along, “Despite them having that instinctive drive to achieve perfection, all the Predazoans are different with their own personalities, different strengths and weaknesses. Maybe for Gamma-20, she only wants to consume a limited amount of biomass that helps her facilitate her goal of manipulating the energy in the khrona crystals—to what end, I would have no idea.”

“Yeah, and who knows, maybe the fact she’s limiting her biomass consumption works in our favor; maybe she’s staying in a small form and that’s why she’s staying away from the larger groups, maybe in a weird way she feels threatened by them.” I reasoned.

Bryz chuckled and shook his head, “A nice thought, but considering even a Gamma generation Predazoan still in her larval form is a planetary threat, I would be incredibly surprised if she was afraid of a few regular people. More than likely it’s what you said, she’s keeping us alive for some reason we can’t figure out, so she’s being careful not to overwhelm us all.” He said.

“Four deaths in a row would be a lot of biomass for her to manage, maybe enough to screw with her balance with the crystals or something.” Roote added.

I waved them off quickly, “Either way, the most important thing we need to determine is whether or not any of the crew has been assimilated or is being controlled.” I looked over to Zyno, “You think you could rig up a sensor like what they had on Vyrane?”

Zyno smirked and nodded, “Of course, being the expert on Predazoan camouflage, I looked over the data from the Vyrane mission and got the specs for their little device. I can even make improvements that might help show if it’s Gamma-20 wearing someone’s dead flesh.”

My eyebrows shot up, “Seriously? I thought nothing in the Empire could break through their camouflage.”

Zyno held up a finger to stop me, “Normally there isn’t, and certainly not for full, unique camouflage. However, I’ve made a few recent discoveries in my private research, and I’ve learned the Predazoans have unique properties to their eyes, so theoretically I

should

be able to—”

The door to the media room opened and out walked Gadow with Fierra right behind him.

Our team shut up immediately as Gadow looked us over with a weary expression.

“Decided to have a little meeting, did we?” He asked, clearly irritated.

It felt like we got caught red-handed, but it’s not like we were doing anything incriminating—hadn’t broken any rules since there were still more than four of us in the group.

No one seemed to know how to respond, but I didn’t want things to escalate, so I stepped forward before anyone could stop me.

“Gadow, I absolutely understand you don’t want to cause division amongst your ranks, I know your people have suffered and I know how much of a struggle keeping everyone together must be, but quite a few of us have been on missions before where someone who was once considered an ally had been brainwashed or controlled, and there’s no way we’ll ever be able to survive this if we just let them be.” I said seriously.

Fierra stepped forward, looking like she was ready to throw a punch, “You have no idea how bad things were and if you think we’ll—” She started, but Gadow put a hand on her shoulder to pull her back.

Gadow looked at me with the eyes of an ancient man and let out a long, weary sigh, “What’re you suggesting?”

I gestured to Zyno, and he stepped forward, “I can create a device that can stealthily detect if someone’s being controlled. Give me a day and access to the tools I’ll need, and we can find out if we have any unwilling saboteurs amongst us.”

“We don’t even need to tell your crew what the test is about, you could say we’re finishing the tests your chief medical officer was working on, making sure everyone is still safe from the dark matter radiation.” Durgo added, sounding surprisingly reasonable.

Gadow crossed his arms and glowered at us, “And what happens if everyone passes, next you’ll be wanting to investigate who might be a

willing

saboteur, right?”

Considering there shouldn’t be anyone willingly working for Gamma-20, that wasn’t something we needed to worry about.

“You’re the one who said there’s no way anyone in your crew would risk losing out on the tour’s profits to betray the mission, so that shouldn’t be anything we’d need to worry about, right? If we can eliminate the concern someone might be brainwashed and unwillingly sabotaging the mission, then we can narrow our focus on what might actually be happening; some hidden cutthroat stowaway, an evil spirit of the void, or maybe some anomalous creature we can’t even begin to comprehend.” I offered, throwing him a bone there with a little bit of truth.

It was subtle, but I could see Durgo was irritated I went that far, glaring at me, but he remained silent.

Gadow looked like a man who carried the world on his shoulders and was making a decision that would decide the fate of the whole planet. After several moments of silent deliberation, he let out a long, tired sigh.

“Fine, work on your test, but I expect

everyone

to keep what we’re looking for hidden until the results are in.” He swept a glare through our group, “And next time you want to have a little meeting, you’ll make sure to do so with the captain of the ship present.” Then he opened the door to the media center, “Now get back in there and enjoy the rest of the fucking movie.”