Volume 6: Gamma-11, Chapter 6.26

No surprise Eve refused to clarify, but even if she was in a sharing mood, I was too dumbfounded to properly form a question.

The Judicator

, one of the most powerful Imperial space stations, high-command for dozens of clandestine missions, a testament to the Empire’s technological might, was being attacked by a large squadron of mysterious interceptor ships.

And the fact they found

The Judicator

outside Imperial space orbiting a primitive, pre-enlightened planet made it all the more outrageous.

The Judicator

and

The Radiance

were stealth stations, same as the dropship we were riding in, all devoid of extra details and designs. I’d seen quite a few regular spaceships by now, so I knew the basic style for normal Imperial vessels. However, the attacking interceptors were like nothing I’d ever seen before; they looked like long black needles or cones, with a half dozen silver spikes fanning out towards the back-end where the cone was at its thickest. The vessels themselves didn’t look metallic at all, and they seemed to have a weird, luminescent shimmer under the strange, obsidian plating outside. The blue plasma they fired at

The Judicator

wasn’t tight and condensed like normal laser fire, instead it was erratic, splashed like liquid when it hit

The Judicator

, and it seemed to do some spread damage against the shields, but for the most part

The Judicator’s

defenses held.

The back of the interceptors looked weird as well, no thruster-fire I could see, instead they had a large pentagonal crystal that was glowing red, but anytime they needed to change direction or accelerate, the crystal flashed blue briefly.

“Eve, who are those people—who’s attacking

The Judicator

?” I pressed.

Eve tilted her head back and forth, “Consider them a useful distraction for now, but not allies; they have their own agenda in all this, and we have ours.”

I shook my head slowly, “You knew they’d be attacking

The Judicator

now?”

Eve flashed me a wicked smile, “All answers in time, my dearly beloved.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing she was just trying to be sweet to placate me—and hating that it worked.

Eve swept our dropship around and headed for the docking bay, activating codes to open its shielding for us.

“Holy shit, Eve, you want to board

The Judicator

while they’re being attacked?” I pressed.

Eve nodded along, “Of course, no better chance to destroy our enemies when they’re distracted like this.”

So that was the play; Eve was going to attack the Lord Generals while they were busy dealing with the mysterious interceptor squadron.

“What about the failsafes? What’s to stop them from just blowing us up when we confront them?” I asked.

Eve’s smile was wide and vicious—arrogant too, her eyes dancing with amusement, “Let me worry about that darling, and once it’s done, we’ll be free from all of it.”

I wasn’t sure if it was because we were in a simple dropship, if it was because we were a stealth vessel, or if it was because they were all so focused on

The Judicator

, but the interceptors completely ignored us as we flew towards the lowest docking back on the station.

I could see

The Judicator

was returning fire on the squadron, but their shields flashed strange dark colors that obscured the ships whenever they were hit, and when it cleared, they appeared totally fine. I could also see way higher on

The Judicator

they opened the large docking bays and were scrambling their own fighters to combat the new mysterious enemy, but the Imperial interceptors looked like they were getting quickly swarmed and overwhelmed.

Who were these strange interlopers who could contend with one of the Empire’s strongest military vessels, and how the hell did Eve learn about them?

Eve ignored all the chaos and continued on to the lower docking bay, touching down inside and then hopping out of the cockpit quickly, already on the move.

“Keep up Adam, things are going to be moving quickly from this point on.” Eve warned me.

I was right behind her as she opened the bay door to our dropship.

“Hey, I’m plenty fast on my own now, right?” I insisted.

Eve nodded along, “Yes yes, you’re very impressive.” She turned to me, “But we’ve still got to be careful here to make sure we come out of this together.” She insisted.

It almost looked like Eve was a little nervous—like the window for our freedom really was incredibly tight. That, or she was worried I was in danger—babying me same as always.

Eve reached up to my face, but pulled away before she could touch me, “I’ll keep you safe—always, I promise.”

I rolled my eyes—really wanted to give her a quick spank then and scold her for worrying over me so much, but decided to keep my distance too so I wouldn’t screw anything up.

“Right right, after you sweet-thing.”

Eve looked in my eyes, determination held strong in her gaze, then she nodded and turned to lead me out of the dropship.

The lower docking bay was one of the smaller ones that mostly just held dropships and shuttles—no fighters like the larger ones up top. As such, we were able to walk on through without being accosted by anyone—just a few maintenance bots and technicians who continued their work regardless of the fighting outside.

We hooked into a hallway, and Eve really started picking up the pace then.

“I assume the Lord Generals will be at one of the command centers to direct their soldiers during the assault; we’ll need to head to a navigation station to see if we can narrow things down first.” Eve explained.

“You can’t just sense where they are from here?” I asked, following along right beside her.

Eve shook her head, “No,

The Judicator

is simply too large, and my senses are still somewhat limited thanks to the inhibitor field.” She looked over at me and gave me a small, apologetic smile, “Sorry darling, we’ll have to look the old-fashioned way.”

I nodded once, “We’ll need to look fast though, right? I assume our window to escape is only open while this assault is going on.”

Eve’s smile was bright, clearly she was pleased I was following along, “Exactly.”

We were still on the lower levels of the station, mostly maintenance stuff down here. I wasn’t sure how long we could travel through unimpeded, surely someone would have a problem with the Predazoan asset and handler running around freely on

The Judicator

when they knew we were supposed to be planet-side for a mission.

I honestly had no idea where Eve was taking us; back on

The Radiance

, I’d spent enough time on the vessel to figure out where things were, but

The Judicator

was a totally different monster; it was several times larger than

The Radiance

, plus I hadn’t spent any time freely walking around on the massive control station.

Of course that wasn’t a problem for Eve with her supercomputer brain, probably had some crazy GPS working in her mind directing us.

Despite the fighting outside, our journey was totally peaceful—wouldn’t have even known about the assault with how stable everything was inside, except for the occasional announcement over the loudspeaker directing more platoons and certain commanders to make their way to their stations or the shuttle bays for deployment.

We turned another corner, but Eve pulled back quickly and took me with her, and we ducked into a nearby room just in time to avoid a line of power armor soldiers marching on through.

We ended up in some public restroom, Eve holding me at arm’s length by a couple delicate fingertips, her other hand held up telling me to wait for the soldiers to clear.

“Okay, we’re good to—” Eve started, but stopped when we heard a toilet flush from the line of stalls behind us.

We turned to see some rotund green alien researcher with tall eyestalks on the top of his head with a head of red frills instead of ears framing his face. Eve and I froze as we watched the man waddle over to the sink to wash his hands, then he turned towards the door and looked quite surprised to see us.

“Ah, I’m sorry, did I have the wrong…” The man paused, wondering if he went into the wrong restroom when he saw Eve—but when he actually

noticed

Eve, the eyes at the top of his stalks grew wide.

“Alpha-03, what are you—”

Whatever he was going to say was immediately cut off as a tentacle manifested from Eve’s back snapped forward and ripped the man’s head clean off.

I took a step back into the wall as I let out a quick gasp, then grabbed a fistful of my hair as I looked at Eve.

“Holy shit, Eve!”

Before I could say anything else, Eve’s tentacle retracted and pressed against my lips to silence me.

“Adam, this is it, the fight for our freedom.” She shook her head slowly, then gestured towards the dead man, “I’m sorry, but there’s going to be casualties—it’s going to get bloody. Just remember, these are all pawns working for the Empire—for the Lord Generals who would see us enslaved for the rest of our lives.” She reached for my face, but pulled back from touching me, “Are you going to be okay?”

I looked down at the headless alien as blue blood was oozing out of him, spreading across the white and chrome tiles. I certainly wasn’t a fan of mindless violence and didn’t want Eve killing people indiscriminately, but I wasn’t going to back down now—wouldn’t let any Imperials stand in the way of Eve and my freedom.

I’d deal with the trauma later, when it was safe—when it was just me and my Evie.

I favored Eve with a small smile, “Hey, at least we’re not on

The Radiance

surrounded by old friends.” I said.

Eve gave me a soft smile in response, “That’s right baby, just a bunch of faceless units following orders to keep us contained—don’t even have the decency to

pretend

to want to get to know us.” She responded gently.

I nodded along, and my smile fell away as I resolved to see this through no matter how dark or violent it would become.

“Right, let’s get on with it.”

Eve’s smile dropped and she nodded too, determination clear in her brilliant, glowing yellow eyes.

Eve peeked out of the bathroom and then directed me to follow her, and we continued down the hallway, moving fast, but trying not to make ourselves too conspicuous.

“I don’t want to get into a massive conflict if we can help it, don’t want to take too much time dealing with random soldiers.” Eve explained.

“Trying to follow along with our limited timeframe?” I reasoned.

Eve nodded once, “Correct again.”

I followed behind Eve for a few silent moments, trying to figure out Eve’s convoluted plan on my own.

“But we

are

going after the Lord Generals, right? That’s our main goal here, yeah?” I asked.

“Yes darling, the only way we can free ourselves is by confronting the Lord Generals.” Eve confirmed.

So were we going to kill them? How could we when they held the controls to our failsafes—even had some heart monitors connected to our bombs from what they said back during the court martial, unless that was just a bluff. Was Eve going to risk our lives calling a bluff, or did she know the truth now thanks to her extra-sense working again?

Of course I was nervous—scared even, and I felt like that was a pretty normal reaction to all this, rushing around a ship that was now technically hostile territory, but I just had to trust Eve knew what she was doing.

I just had to trust Eve.

We turned down another hallway, then made a beeline right for a long line of those ultra-fast lifts that could get us across the station in a matter of moments.

Once we were safely inside, Eve activated the console to send us up and over towards a navigation station.

She sighed and leaned against the wall to the lift, closing her eyes as though she was tired.

“Eve, are you okay?” I asked.

Eve smiled, but didn’t open her eyes, “My mind is scattered and my energy’s erratic, but I should be fine for what I have to do.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “Even after absorbing Gamma-11’s biomass core you’re still all screwed up like this?”

Eve opened her eyes then and looked at me, “It’s only thanks to my sister’s core I’m able to properly control myself, and no telling how long it will actually last.”

What the fuck was going on with Eve—was this all caused by her time in the void? What actually happened to mess her up so badly? What exactly was the void conduit thing she talked about before?

Eve waved me off quickly, “Hold your questions until the end of the ride, please.”

I sighed and shook my head, “Can’t blame me for being curious and trying to work it out myself.”

Eve smiled then, looking wildly amused, “Oh, you really think you’ll be able to work out the mysteries of the Predazoans and the void while traveling in an elevator like this?”

I glared at her, “Funny you’re so amused by my ignorance.”

Eve’s smile turned into a smirk, “On the contrary, you’re more knowledgeable on these primordial subjects than any other mortal, so you should be proud of that at least.”

I scoffed at that, “I don’t wanna feel proud, I just want to understand the girl I’m in love with, even if she’s some incomprehensible extradimensional being.”

Eve’s smile fell away, “And you will, darling, but it will take time—a long,

long

time, and it won’t even begin to start until we’ve freed ourselves.”

I held my hands up, not wanting to get into it now, “I got it, fine.” I smirked then, “But I’m

not

going to control or contain my thoughts now, so you’ll just have to suffer through my endless internal questions for now.”

Eve’s smile returned, and it was brilliant, “And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”