Volume 6: Gamma-11, Chapter 6.22

No surprise, things were awkward as fuck after the praetor’s departure. Kelgorm didn’t apologize, instead he sort of offered his condolences over the ordeal, but his clan’s part in our plan was done, and they subtly suggested it was time for us to move on.

Calmengar was quick to change sides, lingering around with the Galgarian gojens, trying to establish future trades, talking about the dowery they offered and how often they could come deliver the goods, even seemed to try and distance himself from the embarrassment of our insistence to deliver the offering personally—as though he hadn’t been at the forefront of that deal too.

We were clearly old news, so Calmengar moved on to work the elder clan for all he could—the next deal always his focus.

Our team organized into a line and started our walk of shame back to our clan camp by ourselves. No one said anything—no direction from our commanders. We just formed up and moved out.

From my spot at the back of the line I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I could see Dryden and Crisson clearly arguing. If I had to guess, Crisson—a soldier, probably a man of action, wanted to take charge and adapt regardless of our orders from the Lord Generals. But ever the sycophant, I doubted Dryden would do anything until he could hear from high-command how they wanted us to proceed.

Really, I had no idea what we’d do now to get into the temple; we could maybe try and infiltrate it stealthily if high-command still wanted us to maintain our incognito presence on the primitive planet. We didn’t have much gear with us to help with the stealth mission, unless our fancy disguises could change into cloaking devices or something. Still, we had the training and expertise, so I doubted there was much our agents and soldiers wouldn’t be able to do to get us and Eve into the temple to confront Gamma-11.

It was another couple of hours until we made it back to camp, and I saw very few visitors now—being entertained by Thorrio currently. When he noticed our return he looked a little surprised, but not concerned—no idea we’d been so totally rejected.

Our line broke apart then, and Dryden made his way towards me quickly.

“Standby for now, we’re going to see how the Lord Generals want to proceed.” He told me, though I don’t even know why—what else was I going to do?

Unless he was actually concerned I’d take matters into my own hands; according to him, I did have a reputation for it.

Dryden and Crisson marched off towards the leader tent, with the agents both hot on their heels.

I parked the cart beside my tent, same as always, and hopped up to rest my back against the statue.

“Seems we’re in a bit of a pickle, sweet-thing.” I said mildly, pulling out a pouch of some dried jerky I’d received as a gift and started snacking on it.

Kinn made his way towards me and pulled away his face wrappings so I could see his confused expression.

“So, what the hell man, what are we going to do now?” He asked.

I shrugged and tossed him a piece of jerky, “No idea, my orders are to standby for now.”

Kinn shook his head slowly as he ate the jerky, then turned and leaned against the cart, “I mean, that was our whole strategy; get an elder clan’s blessing so we could talk to the praetor, get his token or permission or whatever to get us into the temple. What other options do we have?”

I bit into another piece of jerky, “Stealth infiltration?”

Kinn shook his head again, “Don’t really have the gear for it.”

I shrugged, “Take the temple by force?”

He looked at me and quirked up an eyebrow, “Is that what you’d normally do?”

I smirked then, “Why, do I have a reputation amongst the soldiers?”

Kinn chuckled at that, “Rumors more like.” His laughs turned into a sigh, “But I doubt high-command would want to make a big show of things on a primitive planet, not supposed to influence or alter their development in any way.”

I nodded along, “Not supposed to come to a primitive world like this in the first place, from what I understood.”

Kinn tilted his head back and forth, “You know how the Empire runs things; they make the rules, then bend them to help maintain order.”

“Whatever it takes to keep their dirty little secret hidden.” I added dryly.

Kinn hung around for another hour, then left to join with the other soldiers who started up a game with that old leather ball. I watched the soldiers play for a while, and before I knew it another hour passed, still with no update from our commanders.

I turned to Eve’s statue, “What are you thinking?” I asked.

No reply, but I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t feeling too bad now—my isolation and frustration forgotten momentarily while I was interested in how this new development would unfold.

But I kept waiting for that development; I waited, and waited and waited—same as the soldiers, same as the researchers, we all waited for something to happen, but hours passed and still no news.

After a solid six hours watching the soldiers play and the researchers entertain guests, I was just too curious to continue waiting around and needed some kind of update at this point.

I hoped off the cart and made my way over to the leader’s tent and popped my head inside.

“No, no it’s not on our end, look.” Endynna had the control panel to the computer console open and was showing off its inner-workings, “See? The green light confirms we’re transmitting.”

Dryden shook his head quickly, looking almost frantic, “There must be some mistake—has to be a communications failure.” He insisted.

Endynna nodded once, looking like she was quite sick of dealing with the lieutenant, “Right, and like I said before, the failure must be on

their

end.”

I decided I’d been silent long enough and stepped inside the tent, “Hey, what’s going on?” I asked.

Dryden’s face snapped over to me, and I couldn’t tell if he was angry I was there or just completely overwhelmed by what was happening.

At first I expected him to scold me, but he rushed forward to pull me more into the tent.

“I don’t know what’s going on, we can’t contact

The Judicator

now—haven’t been able to contact them all day.” He insisted, showing off the exposed computer console.

Crisson didn’t look anywhere near as concerned, and he just sighed, “Obviously the men are getting restless, and it’s only going to get worse if we don’t update our orders.” He crossed his arms and eyed the lieutenant evenly, “You’ve got to make a call here.”

Dryden shook his head, “There

is

no call, not without the Lord Generals’ orders.” He turned a glare towards Crisson, “And it’s not the soldiers’ place to get restless, it’s their job to follow orders, nothing more.”

I couldn’t believe it, this guy who was completely paralyzed with fear over making an order without the Lord Generals’ approval was our mission team commander? What the hell were they all thinking promoting this idiot?

“Soooo, what’s the plan? What do you want me and Eve to do?” I asked.

Dryden turned his glare towards me, “I already gave you your orders, Agent Adam; you’re to standby until we can contact high-command.”

I hooked a thumb back towards the tent’s entrance, “And we’re just going to keep Eve locked up all this time until—”

“Are you questioning my orders?” Dryden demanded, almost sounding hysterical.

I let out a long, weary sigh, “No, of course not…sir…”

He nodded and waved me off, “Good—you’re dismissed.”

I looked over towards Crisson on my way out, and he just shrugged.

Great, so now we were working with no plan, at least until we could reestablish contact with the Lord Generals, and we had no idea how long that would take or even what was wrong—could’ve been Gamma-11 interfering with the comms for all we knew.

Well, I guess it wasn’t any of my concern, I’d just have to hang around like always, silent and useless, while the girl I loved was trapped in a box disguised as a fucking statue.

***

The hours continued to crawl by, and I wasn’t the only one who went into the leader tent to question what was happening. The researchers were next, but they weren’t kicked out like I was—Dryden probably tried to get them to fix the computer console that apparently wasn’t broken.

A few soldiers filtered on through, usually forced back outside quickly, but as more time passed and the groups grew larger, it seemed like Dryden was really losing control over the situation.

Finally, after light began to fade once more to signify the end of another day, Crisson left the tent to address his soldiers.

“I know we’re in a weird limbo right now, but as most of you’ve already heard, we can’t get in contact with high-command.” Crisson confirmed.

Giamma raised her hand, “So what of our orders?”

Crisson sighed and shook his head, “Our orders are the same for now; we’re to try and receive a blessing from an elder clan so we can entreat with the praetor so he’ll give us access to their temple.”

“Okay, but didn’t that whole thing fail miserably?” Winnin pressed.

Crisson fixed Winnin with a flat look, as though asking the man to be reasonable with him since we were all dealing with the same shit, “Yes, but until we have new orders from high-command, there’s nothing else we can do.” He waved around the camp vaguely, “For now we’re just going to continue living as a new gojen clan, maybe see if we can make another connection with a different elder clan.”

The soldiers all grumbled at that, and more than a few called it a stupid plan, but Crisson held his hands up then, saying there was nothing he could do.

Obviously, the plan was beyond stupid, and Dryden was probably the worst mission commander I’d ever seen—Crisson by himself would’ve been fine and could’ve adapted operations without any problems.

But aside from all the idiocy, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on with the comms; we were on a primitive planet, so obviously nothing the gojens did could disrupt our communications, and even though I didn’t how the shit worked, Endynna insisted the computer was working fine.

Was it possible

The Judicator

left Congoren’s orbit for some reason? Maybe

The Radiance

had an emergency back in the Vyrane system—or maybe there was some other Predazoan problem they needed to address immediately.

No, realistically it was Gamma-11 causing the issue, which meant it wouldn’t go away until we dealt with Gamma-11—which meant we’d be left sitting around with our thumbs up our asses since Dryden refused to do anything without the Lord General’s approval.

We’d be stuck here with no way to move forward, all because the idiot lieutenant wouldn’t be able to work around a problem by himself—without the Lord Generals holding his hand every step of the way.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at how stupid the entire situation was.

“What do you think sweet-thing, you think Dryden’s going to get us all killed thanks to being such a legendary dumbass?” I asked.

I hadn’t expected a reply, but I was pleasantly surprised when Eve trilled a cute noise at me.

I sat upright in the cart, “Hey Evie, how you holding up?”

There was a pause in the noise, then another little trill.

“Adam…”

I nodded along, “Yeah, what is it—you need something?”

Another few moments before a response, “Yes…”

I waited to hear what Eve needed, but that was all I got.

I sighed, “Okay, and what is it you need?”

It almost seemed like it was hard for Eve to speak—painful even, and I didn’t know if I realized that before, but it made me feel a little guilty for the couple times I directed my frustration towards her.

“Trust Eve…” She trilled.

I cocked my head to the side, wondering what she was actually trying to say, “Yeah, Eve, I trust you, it’s okay.”

“No…

trust

Eve…” She insisted.

I shook my head slowly, “Eve, I don’t know what you’re trying to say here.”

Eve trilled a string of nonsense words, sounding like she was frustrated—just like she used to in her adorable child-form back on Earth.

“No, no no—

trust

Eve…” She insisted.

I nodded along, “Eve, I told you I—”

Eve continued on with her trills, sounding more aggressive now.

“

Trust

Eve—

Free

Eve.”