Volume 6: Gamma-11, Chapter 6.23

That was all I got from Eve, after that she was silent once more.

I pressed my hands against the statue, feeling the hum from the barrier, “Eve? Eve what are you saying?” I pressed.

No response—no trills or anything.

Was she somehow in pain in the mobile containment cell? Did they do something else to keep her trapped? When I was reunited with Eve, she showed me how she could teleport through repulser barriers, opening small warp gates—warp corridors she called them. And yet she hadn’t been able to warp out of the little cell—actually, she never talked about getting out or needing to be freed. Was that because of something the Empire had done, or was that caused by her weird devolution that robbed her of her normal speech capabilities?

Forgetting the details for now, what the hell was Eve asking me to do here—and why? She couldn’t get out of the containment cell on her own, I could understand that, but why would she need to be freed now of all times? Was it something to do with Gamma-11—maybe why we were unable to communicate with high-command? Maybe she was just in pain and needed to get out of that little cell—I couldn’t imagine how uncomfortable she’d been all this time.

And then another thought occurred, what if this was part of the plan for getting us totally freed from the Empire’s control?

Well, as nice as that would be, I doubted that plan was still alive with Eve in her current state—doubted she even remembered the plan or what all she was supposed to do before.

But the how and why didn’t matter, what mattered was Eve asked me to trust her and set her free.

Problem was I couldn’t exactly do it on my own; even with my enhanced strength, I’d never be able to brute force the cell open. No, the only person who could open it would be Dryden who had the controls on his personal tablet.

Shit, should I try to steal it from him? No, it would be more than obvious what I’d done once Eve was out and free—wasn’t like I could blame anyone else.

I realized then I’d have to talk with the man, try and reason with him—tell him it was for the mission. I doubted he would listen to reason here—doubted he would break away from the Lord General’s orders. But Eve asked me to trust her, and even though I didn’t know why, I knew I needed to listen to her over any stupid orders from the Empire.

No time to second-guess myself, I hopped off the cart and made my way back towards the leader’s tent.

Inside it was just Dryden and his agents now, and he was standing over them while they continued working on the computer console.

“You can at least set it up for a repeating message, right—like a distress beacon?” Dryden asked.

Endynna sighed, looking beyond frustrated, “I already told you

hours

ago we set that up, there’s nothing else we can do for now.”

Yendern nudged Endynna and nodded my way, and she looked up to see me, then turned to Dryden, then back to me.

“Oh, uh, hey Adam.” She said evenly, probably preparing herself to be questioned over what they were doing—same as everyone else.

Dryden glared at me, “What are you doing here? I told you to standby—wait for orders, nothing else for you to do.” He waved me off, “Dismissed.”

I clenched my jaw to bit down a sharp response, wanting to try the diplomatic approach first.

“I think we should free Eve—I think she could help.” I said, standing my ground.

The agents looked surprised by my request, then turned to see Dryden’s response.

Dryden sputtered a few nonsense words until he could get himself in order, “Help—

how

?”

I held my hands out in a presenting manner, “With pretty much anything.” I gestured towards the computer, “I know Eve’s technical knowledge could fix the comms better than anyone else on the team if that’s the problem, and if it’s not—if it’s something with Gamma-11, Eve would be able to investigate it.” I shrugged, “She could even infiltrate the temple so we could finally—”

“No, out of the question.” Dryden shook his head quickly, “The two of you haven’t proven yourselves cooperative enough to risk releasing her now, especially when she’s in this weirdly primitive state.”

I waved out towards the tent’s entrance, “Eve’s been perfectly compliant all this time staying completely silent inside the containment cell, and I’ve definitely followed along with all my orders. I’m telling you, the only way we can figure out what’s—”

Dryden laughed once, it sounded sharp and harsh, “And yet here you are again, overstepping your role and trying to give your commanding officer orders.” His smile was arrogant and nasty, “Once again you prove you always think you know best; all this time you’ve been biding your time

pretending

to be compliant, when really you’ve been waiting for the right—”

“Dryden, will you just shut the fuck up and listen to me? Eve

asked

to be set free—she

knows

something’s going on and she wants to help, but obviously she can’t trapped in the containment unit.” I insisted.

Dryden paused in his tirade for a few moments, and for a fraction of a second he looked like he considered it, but then he shook his head quickly, “Still no, we don’t have authorization from the Lord Generals to release her.” He narrowed his eyes at me, “Your request is denied, Agent Adam. Dismissed.”

Well, it was a good run; what did I last, one miserable cycle following along with their ridiculous orders? But if the choice was between being compliant with high-command and my Evie, obviously there was no world where I’d choose

anyone

over her.

I looked around the little tent and saw in the corner there was a crate with some of our more conspicuous supplies, including Dryden’s tablet. He followed my gaze and once he saw what I was looking at his eyes grew wide as he realized what I was going to do.

But I had ridiculously enhanced speed and flexed the weird new organelle to slow everything down around me, and before Dryden could even make a sound of protest, I rushed forward and struck him in the chest with a simple palm strike, disrupting his disguise and sending him ripping out of the tent.

Before the agents could react, I was already on the other side of the tent and had the tablet in my hand, and I rushed back outside while working through the menus to try and find the program to release Eve from her cell.

I was moving as fast as I could, knowing there was no turning back at this point, so everything around me seemed like it was going in slow motion. I heard some gojens scream in the distance—probably saw Dryden without his disguise. The soldiers were scrambling around trying to figure out what was going on, and the agents tried to follow after me, but were far too slow to keep up.

I made it to Eve’s statue at the same time I found the release program, and without a moment’s hesitation, I deactivated the disguise and released her from the repulser barrier all at once.

The hologram faded away quickly so I could see Eve was no longer wrapped up in a leathery cocoon, instead she seemed to be wearing a tattered version of her princess gown, shredded and torn with excess materials trailing off in various places.

The moment she was free Eve threw her head back and shrieked wildly, manifested six huge black bat wings on her back, then leapt up in the sky and rocketed off towards the temple.

“Adam, what the fuck did you do?” Kinn asked me.

A moment later, Endynna and Yerndern were before me, disguises disabled, each pointing a plasma pistol at me.

“Freeze Adam!” Endynna shouted.

“What the hell happened to Dryden, where is he?” I heard Thorrio ask.

“I see him, he’s running back to the camp—looks injured, got a crowd of gojens after him too.” Giamma confirmed.

“Adam, put your hands in the air, and move—” Yendern started.

But I wasn’t going to just sit around and let them arrest me or whatever. With my enhanced speed still active, I rushed out of the camp and headed towards the temple after Eve. I had no idea what she was planning, but I assumed she was going after Gamma-11.

No point in trying to remain incognito, I deactivated the gojen disguise to return to my regular form, wearing the simple black padded jumpsuit underneath.

I ran across the sand, kicking up a huge stream behind me since I was moving so fast. For the most part I was gone before the native gojens could even see me, but a few caught sight of me and I heard the unrest stir within the primitive settlement, but I was way past caring about such frivolities now.

What had taken me an hour to travel before while walking in a line only took a few minutes, and when I arrived at the temple, I saw Eve had already made her presence known.

The normal worshippers were fleeing in terror, and while half the guards were trying to maintain order amongst the crowd, the other half were rushing up the steps to head into the temple.

People who passed me and saw the alien screamed and ran away, a few called out to the guards and they made their way towards me, pointing their bone spears my way.

These were all just regular people, so I really didn’t want to hurt them—didn’t want to hurt anyone really, but I was absolutely going to defend myself.

A dozen guards tried to confront me, and a dozen guards were down in the sand a few moments later; I disabled them all easily, breaking their spears with little effort, then picked them up by an arm or leg and just tossed them a dozen feet away. For a few of the bolder guards I had to be a little more aggressive, hitting them with a palm strike to send them flying across the sands.

I heard a terrible screeching cry come from the temple, followed by another—two different Predazoan roars.

Once I was clear of the guards, I rushed up the temple steps and made my way into the temple, ignoring all the chaos below.

The inside of the temple was just as white and immaculate as the outside, illuminated by golden torches spaced evenly throughout. The main room itself was large with a high dome ceiling, and it looked like there were carvings in the white stone that told a story—about the clans, about the gojens, probably about meeting their New Light, but I didn’t have time to stop and appreciate the art.

There were tons of offerings all across the room too; statues, pottery, crates of precious gems and stone, looked like there was food up here too, but it seemed like most of it had been eaten already.

I heard another challenging shriek deeper in the temple, and I saw at the far end of the main room was another entryway leading deeper inside, framed by intricate white pillars.

I started running forward, but decided to steady my pace so I wouldn’t rush into the middle of a fight between two Predazoans. There was a long hallway leading out of the main room, and then a staircase heading down into the heart of the temple.

On either side of the stairway on the way down I saw rooms filled with treasure and offerings, dozens of them—hundreds even. There was no real pattern I could see, just rare goods offered to the New Light and housed within her temple.

It was probably three stories down, winding back and forth between a few staircases until I levelled back out into another hallway, but I wasn’t alone down here.

There were dozens of temple guards scattered across the hallway, all dead or dying, with huge chucks of meat ripped off their bodies. I slowed down as I continued down the hall towards another huge opening, but stopped when I saw one gojen still had a chance for survival.

It was the praetor, sitting up against the wall, covered in blood and hyperventilating. He was crying too, made him look even younger.

“I-I-I j-just d-don’t understand, d-d-did I d-do s-something wrong?” He stammered, and I could see he was holding the bloody stump of his left arm.

If he noticed I was an alien he didn’t say anything about it, clearly in shock now and not thinking straight.

I reached over to a nearby dead temple guard and started ripping off strips of his robes, then turned back to the praetor.

The young man kept hiccupping and crying, but he was strangely compliant when I pulled his arm away so I could wrap it.

“This is a tourniquet, you understand?” I asked the praetor, still with the translator active, “You need to keep this on to stop the bleeding.” I said, then wrapped the cloth tight around his arm.

He winced when I pulled it tight enough to stop the bleeding, then seemed to just zone out a little.

“Did…I…do…something wrong…” He asked, then passed out.

I checked his pulse and confirmed he was alive, although I wasn’t sure what his chances were with an amputation and no advanced medicine to stabilize him.

Before I could do anything else to help the young praetor, I heard another series a screeching, followed by a huge crashing sound that seemed to shake the entire temple. I had to leave the praetor then and continued through the temple, only to find the next grand offering room had a massive hole in the stone walls, slowly crumbling away.

I heard the wild sounds of battle outside, so I ran over to the hole to look, and when I saw we were basically ground level, I hopped out and stepped onto the sand once again to witness the battle between the two Predazoans.