Volume 5: Gamma-20, Chapter 5.18

We finished the space pirate love story movie, then it was time for some weird, exotic comedy about horse-people aliens that had a hilarious amount of dick jokes, and by then everyone was too exhausted to keep going, so it was time to retire for the night.

Normally, people on deep space freighters would be working on rotations, but Gadow changed things so everyone would be up together, believing it would keep us all more secure—easier to move in groups with more people awake, and with everyone asleep at once it seemed like their cutthroat stowaway wouldn’t risk waking everyone up together to come and kill someone in the shared rooms. Since most systems were automated and there was nothing that needed to be guarded at night, there really wasn’t a reason to have a midnight crew up, instead all the daily maintenance would be done together when everyone was awake.

Me and Zyno ended up in a room with Zemman, Num, Lummy and Reim—who still seemed to dislike me, either for interrogating her over those dead bodies, or because I was some scoundrel mercenary with illegal genetic modifications.

Apparently it was Lummy’s private room before it was turned into a communal bedroom, and despite her somewhat dark/goth appearance, the room seemed almost girly with lots of purple and red decorations, and a few engineering projects scattered on her desk.

The room itself seemed like a studio apartment, with a large bed, couch and a large hover-screen TV, a small kitchenette area, a workspace in a funny little corner office, and of course her own private bathroom.

Lummy and Reim put up a curtain to give themselves some privacy, while the guys just threw their mattresses down on any available space. With the extra mattresses now, the room was finally starting to fill up.

Zyno and I put our mattresses close to each other, and I stripped down to just my pants as I got into the surprisingly comfortable bed with a blanket that regulated the temperature perfectly.

“So, how are you holding up?” Zyno asked in a whisper.

I let out a long sigh, “Tired.”

“Yeah I know, but I was wondering how you’re doing without Eve.” He pressed.

I turned away from him, “How are you doing without Yun?”

He sighed too, “I miss her.”

I was silent for a few seconds, wondering what I could even say about my Eve—what all I felt about her; it seemed impossible to put into words.

“Yeah, I know.” I whispered.

I was beyond exhausted, and I just wanted to turn my brain off and sleep at this point, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about Eve.

I thought over our last conversation before everything was all panicked on

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; it seemed like things were perfect between us, we’d gotten over a large hurdle in our relationship—the differences between a human and a Predazoan and were on our way to a more stabilized relationship, a good balance between us.

Another thought I couldn’t shake was how easily Eve could take care of our situation here; she would be able to sense where Gamma-20 was if she wasn’t camouflaged, and even if she was camouflaged Eve would easily be able to contain the crew while we used Zyno’s device to figure out who it was—hell, Gamma-20 would probably reveal herself and try to parlay with Eve once she revealed she was an Alpha Predazoan.

It made me a little disheartened when I realized how useless I was without her, but at least she made me want to be better—to do more. Even now, being the only person who could come close to contending with a Gamma Predazoan, I wanted to handle myself in a way that would impress Eve—make her proud I could do so much on my own. She was always babying me, and a strange part of me enjoyed that since I was so used to having to be strong and solitary on my own, both for my old job and in previous relationships. But I was still a man and there was a part of me that wanted to protect Eve, to take care of her the exact same way she wanted to take care of me.

It was funny, as she said before, sexually I was quite the switch, wanting to be dominant while also being dominated—wanting to be submissive while also tearing into Eve when she was acting all cute and submissive. But it clearly wasn’t just sexually that I liked switching things around, also for my personality—just being who I was, I wanted to switch things up, to take charge sometimes and put the work in, while also letting Eve dote on my and spoil me to a ridiculous degree to the point I didn’t even have to lift a finger.

I missed her so much it was making me sick, and part of me wondered if the migraine I got from the void was actually caused by Eve’s absence—if I was going through Eve withdrawals, if my obsession and addiction to her was having a physical effect on me now. I missed her terribly, but I wondered if physically maybe a little break would actually be a good thing, even if mentally and emotionally it felt like my heart was ripped from my chest.

I knew Eve was dangerous for me, but I was just so desperate to have her back I didn’t care what it might cost, I just needed that part of my soul returned to me, and I didn’t know if I would be able to hold out long without it.

Despite how exhausted I was, it took me far longer than I wanted to fall asleep, my mind reeling with thoughts of Eve—my doubts and fears and concerns spiraling in on themselves. When I was finally able to drift off, I didn’t have any pleasant dreams about Eve like I was hoping, instead I dream of some terrible dark void of which there was no escape.

***

I woke up feeling like my body was made of lead; everything was so heavy I just couldn’t move or orient myself for several minutes.

Once I was finally up, I got in line to take a shower, having to wait behind Zemman and Lummy. When it was finally my turn I got to see how nice the bathroom was, looking like it should belong to a fancy hotel, with a multi-fauceted shower that absolutely blasted the shit out of you from several different directions. I turned the heat up as high as it could go to hopefully get rid of all my muscle soreness, and once I was done I looked in the mirror to see my skin had turned bright red—probably would’ve burned myself without my genetic enhancements.

I wore the same clothes as yesterday since I didn’t have anything else, then strapped on all my weapons.

“Anything we can do about clothes, either getting us some spares or helping us wash what we’ve got?” I asked the room.

Lummy was moving around her room with a purpose while she was getting ready, “We have a laundry room if you need it, don’t have the robots to do it for you now unfortunately. Other than that, we should have some extra uniforms you guys could borrow.”

I nodded along, “Appreciate it.”

Zyno was the last to get ready for the day, looking wearier than I’ve ever seen him.

“How’d you sleep?” I asked.

He shook his head, “Like shit, had nightmares about the void.” He gestured to me, “You?”

I shrugged, “About the same, but at least the migraine is gone.”

Doctor Reim stopped beside us, “You guys were really out in void space without any shielding?”

I nodded, “None at all.”

“I’ve heard it’s like hell to experience the void without any protection, can cause enough trauma to kill a person.” Zemman said.

“Pretty sure that’s what happened to Hennor.” Zyno said mildly.

Zemmon smiled sheepishly, “Oh shit, yeah, sorry.”

I shrugged, “Didn’t really know him, just joined on the same contract as him—bad timing I guess.”

I wasn’t sure if that was me trying to keep up the appearance of being a mercenary, or if I was just in a particularly callous mood after such a bad night. Either way, it stopped the

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crew from asking any more questions.

We all left together, staying in a group as always, making our way to the cafeteria to see we were the last ones to make it.

I got some synthesized breakfast of strange eggs and ham (a little different from the Dr. Suess story, but close enough) and sat down at a table with all my roommates.

Once he saw we were all settled, Gadow stood up from his table and stood before the congregation.

“It appears we have a couple more disappearances.” He announced.

There was unruly chatter right away, but Gadow held up a hand and continued on even before he reclaimed silence.

“No one’s been able to get in touch with Hekon or Dotte, as most of you know they were in a relationship, and they were known to sneak away frequently to have little lover’s trysts.” He explained.

“Shit, they got totally hammered last night, probably weren’t even thinking straight.” Num said gruffly.

Gadow nodded along, “Possibly, but that just goes to show we can’t take any risks now in going out without our groups. We have no idea what’s behind these disappearances, but we know they haven’t gone after anyone in a group of four or larger.” He confirmed.

I couldn’t believe just like that Gamma-20 snatched up two more people; was it just an opportune moment for her, or had they gone somewhere that put her at risk? And really, how was staying in these small groups so affective in keeping a fucking Predazoan at bay? Was she just weirdly timid compared to the others, or was she exceedingly cautious?

“Does anyone know where they were last seen, or who they were with last?” Durgo asked.

Gadow glowered at Durgo, probably thinking he was coming dangerously close to blaming someone on the crew.

“Hekon went to bed same time as the rest of us last we saw, although he’d been messaging Dotte a lot that night—and like Num said, he was pretty wasted.” Yevok answered.

“Dotte, I believe she was in our room, right?” Bryx said, looking to his tablemates who all nodded, “She said she was feeling sick, went to the bathroom, I don’t think anyone saw her come out.”

Vola, the red female glizreks hit her fist on the table, “We forced them into different rooms because they wouldn’t stop fooling around and it was making people uncomfortable; if we would’ve just let it be, maybe they wouldn’t have gone to these lengths to be together.”

A few people agreed with her, but a few more people said the couple was way over the top—Zyno looked at me when he heard people chastising their PDA, but I refused to look at him.

Gadow held his hands up again, “Please people, we’ve all had to make sacrifices here.” He chanced a brief glance towards Fierra, then turned back to the crew, “And we shouldn’t jump to any hasty conclusions as to what’s happened to them.”

“What the hell else could it be when we’ve got people dying or disappearing and then are never seen again?” Reim demanded, sounding almost frantic.

“We’re going to look for them, maybe find out they feel asleep together somewhere.” Gadow said, and that just caused more people to start talking over each other.

“Everyone quiet, the captain is talking!” Fierra shouted, reigning them all in.

As a couple, they seemed to work really well together, didn’t seem to let romance get in the way of things—I was impressed.

Gadow nodded his thanks then turned back towards the crew, “We’re going to split our attentions up for the next few days. First, we’re going to have a group look for Hekon and Dotte. Next, Zyno is going to try and finish Doctor Fenx’s tests to make sure no one’s suffering any consequences from the dark matter radiation. And then finally, we need to make a decision on which system we’re going to focus on, communications or the warp reactor.

“Everyone needs to vote now, raise your hand for communications.” Gadow ordered, and a few people raised their hands—no one from our team I noticed.

Gadow nodded, “Alright, and the warp reactor?” He said, and more people raised their hands then, including my team.

Gadow sighed, then clasped his hands together, “Alright, there we have it, from now on we’re going to have our engineers focus their attention on getting the warp reactor back up and running.” He looked around again, “Any questions or concerns?”

There weren’t any questions, but it was obvious pretty much everyone had concerns, though they had yet to voice them.

Gadow continued talking as though someone had said something, “And I understand for the couples among us this is an incredibly difficult time since we simply aren’t safe to have any private time. I’m open to solutions, but until we can figure out a way just two people can be safely alone together with whatever we’re dealing with, I’m afraid those intimate moments are going to be put on hold—indefinitely.”

I could see a few people wore their frustrations obvious on their faces, others didn’t seem to care—the single people I would imagine. It was tough, banning couples from being together over safety concerns, and while I understood it since just two people by themselves clearly weren’t safe, with the way Gadow was fighting to keep morale up, this might be the hardest battle to win.