Volume 5: Gamma-20, Chapter 5.19

Our team was split up with the rest of the groups, with Zyno heading to some workshop engineering bay to work on his scanner, the engineers going to the warp reactor, and then a security detail making a sweep through the ship to find our missing couple.

Zyno took three other people, regular specialists or technicians that didn’t have anything else going on, just bodies to keep him safe. Durgo and Roote stayed with the engineers, wanting to keep an eye on their progress on the warp reactor, there for extra security as they said it. And then of course I would be part of the security detail led by Captain Gadow, with Bryx and Willa tagging along. We also had Brunt and Toku with us—

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security officers, geared up with some more equipment from our lifepod, and of course Fierra who always seemed to stay with Gadow.

Gadow and Fierra were offered those extra weapons, though they honestly didn’t look like they knew how to use them. Still, with a little insistence, they finally caved and agreed to remain armed.

Of course, against a Predazoan, I didn’t think a couple plasma pistols and proton blades would be able to do much of anything.

If it really came down to it, things would be up to me and Bryx with our heavy carbine rifles loaded with the destabilizing acid rounds. Hopefully the others would at least be a good distraction, giving us an opportunity to unleash our lethal ammunition.

Once the teams were all established, Gadow started leading us through

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, with me up front and Bryx watching our rear, with everyone else between us.

“So really, no one knows where they were last?” I asked when we left the cafeteria and started making our way towards the central command core.

“In their rooms, that’s all we know for now.” Gadow confirmed.

“They were known to duck out in the middle of work and maintenance to meet up together, really isn’t a surprise out of all the couples on the crew it was them who broke protocol to sneak off together.” Fierra added.

“Are there a lot of couples on the ship?” I asked.

Gadow and Fierra exchanged a look, both clearly holding back smiles.

“On these long tours, pretty much everyone is part of a couple at one point or another; some might start out as a couple and stay together through it all, others treat relationships like a revolving door, and then others will just hook up freely without any attachments.” Fierra explained.

I nodded along, understanding what they were driving at, “Space can get very lonely after a while, so most people on a long space-faring vessel will seek comfort wherever they can.” I confirmed, remembering what Kianna told me a long time ago.

“That’s about right. Honestly, after this whole mess started, we had quite a few breakups—some rather shocking.” Gadow told me.

“Some people can’t handle the stress, so when the shallow, superficial relationships are tested, they fold almost immediately.” Fierra added.

“Are we going to need to worry about anymore couples sneaking off in the night?” I asked.

Gadow shook his head, “No, the rest know what’s expected of them. I’d like if we could find a solution so couples could spend time together, but aside from other people being present during an intimate date, I don’t see any other alternative.”

“No one willing to bite the bullet I guess?”

Gadow quirked up an eyebrow ridge, “Bite the what now?”

I waved him off, “Expression from my home world, ignore me; my race is known for using an overabundance of idioms.”

Gadow nodded once, moving right along, “And what about you Adam? Your crew seems to work well together for being random mercenaries on the same project, and you seem to know Zyno personally.” He asked.

I nodded along, “Yeah, Zyno and I are buddies, decided to work the same contract together. A few of the others I’ve worked with before, but nothing crazy.” I hooked a thumb back, “Bryx was actually on the last mission with me, the one on Vyrane. After seeing what he can do, I’m glad it’s him watching our backs.”

“The way some of our crew told it, we should be glad it’s you protecting us now.” Fierra said, not quite sounding suspicious.

I smirked, “Someone spilled the beans on my genetic modifications I take it?”

Gadow looked confused, “What do spilled beans have to do with anything now?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that, “Shit, sorry, another idiom.”

Now I was really missing Eve, there was someone who got all my obscure phrases and references.

“Someone told you about my genetic enhancements.” I confirmed.

Gadow nodded, “Yes, said you were rather forthright with them despite confirming they were illegal.”

I smirked at that, “You’ll be glad I have them when trouble starts; you won’t find someone faster or stronger than I am who doesn’t have these kinds of modifications, so if we run into your crazy stowaway space pirate, doesn’t matter what kind of cybernetic enhancements he’s got to allow him to keep terrorizing your crew, so long as he doesn’t completely match my genetic modifications, I’ll have him dead to rights.” I boasted easily.

Of course, I knew I wouldn’t really stand a chance against the real threat—a Predazoan, and if it came to a fight my modifications wouldn’t help much, but I was doing my best to help keep morale up—offer Gadow a pretty story he could spread to the rest of his crew.

Gadow actually smiled then, “Hey, you take care our stowaway, I won’t care if your genetic mods are an affront to every known god in the Imperial pantheon, I’ll be more than accepting of them at that point.”

***

We checked out the command center and Gadow even made an announcement on the overhead speaker system, although it seemed to take a little while for him to connect properly—another system that had been damaged.

After that we circled around the rest of the core sector, moving through various computer and navigation rooms. We even went to the cockpit, which was surprisingly small since almost everything on a freighter like this would be automated. We doubled back to the living quarters and went through every room individually, clearing them one by one like some specialized military team.

The rooms were all about the same, all large apartments that would be rather comfortable to live in during the long mission, and I got a little window into the

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crew’s personality with every one I visited. I could see most of them had some projects they’d been working on, now abandoned. Quite a few were artists, some piece just waiting for their master to resume working on it—eager to be finished. I saw someone’s room completely decked out with virtual games and nerdy paraphernalia—looked like a good home to me. There were some musical instruments I couldn’t even tell what they were since they were so foreign and alien looking. Each room I visited made me feel closer to the

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crew, and once more I felt a sense of responsibility to keep these people safe—same as back on Vyrane.

I didn’t know if it was the fact I worked as a medic in my old life and made a career out of trying to save lives, didn’t know if it was my connection to Eve I felt responsible in containing the Predazoan threat, or maybe it was just because I was a big softy and just couldn’t stand to leave people when they were in danger, but once again I knew I needed to take my job seriously and do all I could to keep them safe—to get us all out of this mess, stranded in the Derrion System.

Of course, the part of the mission where we were supposed to contain or kill a Predazoan, I had no idea what the fuck we were supposed to do with that. But so long as I got the crew to safety, that would be my mission complete.

We finished up searching through the living quarters and moved on to the recreational area, and even though we got the full tour yesterday, we doubled up on it today, looking for any sign of our missing couple.

“Any places they were known to visit together—date spots maybe?” Willa asked.

Gadow and Fierra exchanged a look, then Gadow just smiled and shook his head.

“The bar or the nox-lounge, the two rather enjoyed…letting loose.” Gadow confirmed.

We went to the automated bar first, and unfortunately it wasn’t manned by any kind of robot that could record things, just some robot arm that could pour drinks based on what you ordered on some digital screen.

We next went to the nox-lounge, looking rather similar to the one on the Glorva Corp station—the one where me and Eve got propositioned by that weird couple. Like some futuristic hookah lounge with a huge pipe system, but no sign of the couple.

We headed back out towards the rest of the relaxation spots then, looking through the media room, the simulators, the pool area and even the robot spa center—places we though a couple might go to be alone.

Still no sign of them.

We started branching out at that point, hitting up every room we hadn’t checked yet, but we didn’t find a single trace of them—no evidence of a struggle, no trail of blood, nothing at all.

I couldn’t help but think how demoralizing it would be for the crew if every time someone went missing Gadow organized a search like this, having to search high and low across the ship, only for them to never find the people they’d worked alongside over the past 20 years.

It was really crazy to think about, but to imagine working a living alongside these people for two decades—not just a day job you worked, seeing the people from 9-5 with weekends off, no, they became completely integrated with each other’s lives.

I was sure people would have their squabbles—Gadow even mentioned old issues were brought back once the infighting started, but imagine living with these people, and then suddenly they were gone—or worse.

Holy shit, no wonder Gadow had such a hard time keeping morale up, that would be like your friend, family, neighbor and coworker all in one disappearing from your life in an instant—your own life changing drastically and irrevocably in that moment.

Not to mention some of the people had been hooking up together—romantic entanglements on top of everything else.

Shit, I couldn’t even imagine how desperate that would make everyone.

We finished searching around the recreation section of the ship, and it took us a few hours to cover all that ground, so Gadow decided to have us head back for a quick break and a meal. We got to the cafeteria to have lunch, and once again the food was quite plasticky—my makeshift burger tasting more like a boot than meat and bread. I could see everyone else was struggling through their own meal, but they refused to say anything about it—didn’t want to voice another complaint to bring the mood down I assumed.

Once we were done with our food, Gadow looked around at everyone.

“Okay, from here we’re going to have to move to more auxiliary systems, head in deeper through

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; we probably won’t be able to get through them all in one day, so we should figure out which would be the priority. Suggestions where to start?” He inquired.

Bryx stoked his long mammoth trunk, “We could either stay towards closer systems around where the couple was last seen, or head towards places we think they might go.” He reasoned.

Fierra shook her head, “I can’t imagine they would go anywhere for a tryst outside the recreational sector, so I don’t think that matters much.”

Brunt shrugged, “I don’t know, I heard they hooked up in the emergency shuttle once.”

Fierra made a disgusted face, “Ew.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “You guys have an emergency shuttle?”

Gadow nodded, “Obviously, standard Imperial protocol requires all warp-capable vessels to have an emergency shuttle. Why?”

I shrugged, “Anyone thought of taking it to go find and bring back some help?”

Gadow shook his head, “It doesn’t have warp capabilities, just G-drive, and that was disabled when the warp gate collapsed. Besides, even if its G-drive was still functional, out here in deep space, it would take several cycles to travel to the next closest system, and no guarantee it would have a repair or rescue station.”

“Does it have its own communication system?” I asked, wondering if someone could fly the shuttle outside the Derrion System, send a distress signal, then bring help back to

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.

“The shuttle’s comms system is relayed through

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, so with our main comms down, the shuttle won’t be able to send out a distress beacon either.” Gadow explained.

“What, that’s dumb; so if

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’s destroyed and the comms go with it, what the hell’s the shuttle supposed to do at that point?” I asked.

Fierra looked at me like she thought I was asking a childish question, “Adam, deep space communications systems are incredibly complex; simplest way to explain why that won’t work is to tell you

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entire communications network is literally several times larger than the emergency shuttle, so how the hell would a shuttle ever fit something like that onboard?”

I gestured around randomly, “So if

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goes down and everyone escapes in the shuttle, how the fuck are they ever going to get rescued?” I pressed.

Now it was Gadow’s turn to look at me like I was dumb, “There’s no easy way to say it, but the chances of an emergency shuttle being rescued are close to none. They have a separate, short-range comms network, but the odds of another vessel coming within range out in the vastness of deep space to rescue the shuttle, mathematically, are near zero.” He explained.

“There’s a reason these contracts pay so well; yes, we have as many comforts as the company can throw at us, and all state-of-the-art equipment to give us the best chance of survival, but there’s no hiding the fact working out in deep space is incredibly dangerous. Should anything go wrong with the main vessel, it’s pretty much expected there’s little hope of rescue.” Fierra added.

Well, there it was, the real reason keeping morale up was such a fight. Aside from living and working alongside these people, I could imagine they had very little hope they would survive now, their only chance was if they could get their long-range comms working again, and another rescue vessel would be able to find them. But what were the chances even that signal would be picked up by someone else? Hell, for all I knew, even a long-range distress beacon was rarely answered under normal circumstances; maybe the only reason we caught theirs was because we had our probe out in the same system to spy on Gamma-20.

I could see then why everyone looked so worn and weary; most of them were just barely hanging on to their will to live at this point—most had probably long since given up.

A deep, existential fear gripped me in my stomach, and I realized Gamma-20 wasn’t the only danger we needed to worry about; stranded out here in deep space, as Gadow said it, our chance of rescue, mathematically, was near zero.