Volume 6: Gamma-11, Chapter 6.28

For a moment there I was worried Eve was getting reckless while trying to rush us through her timeline, but once we had a route to follow to get to the Lord Generals, she was back to being cautious.

The soldiers continued to be scrambled, and the overhead speaker asked for more officers and commanders to their stations—forcing people back on duty even if it wasn’t their shift.

It was still so wild to me there was all that chaos was happening outside, and yet we couldn’t feel even the tiniest rumble from inside

The Judicator

—not even so much as a vibration or light flicker. It made me wonder if the enemy had any hope against

The Judicator

at all, or maybe it was so massive even if there was some damage we’d never feel it on the opposite side of the station.

I also wondered if any of the bodies we’d left behind had been discovered yet. Certainly nothing from the overhead speakers indicated they suspected Eve was on the station and causing internal destruction, but I imagined that’d be the kind of thing they’d try to keep hidden so they could get the jump on us at some point.

Of course with Eve’s extra-sense, would an ambush ever be possible? Well, if they continued with their mental training to block Eve out, I figured it wasn’t impossible.

We took one more lift to transfer over to the section with the Lord Generals’ secure command center, and unfortunately this one was centralized with a lot of soldier traffic filtering through.

We were hidden in some utility closet that housed a few robots in the middle of their charging cycle, rather cramped but at least we were alone.

I noticed now more than ever Eve stayed distant from me, as though keeping herself together was even more difficult with me nearby.

“Am I, like, distracting you from keeping your mind and body all formed up or whatever you were saying?” I asked, though my question sounded like it made little sense.

Eve nodded along anyways, “Yes, and as I told you my body is filled with an abundance of void energy, and getting involved with you might disrupt that.”

I shook my head slowly, “So is this excess void energy keeping you together, or threatening to tear you apart?”

Eve offered me a small smile, “It’s really not something I can explain now darling, different from anything you could guess or imagine.” Her smile turned apologetic, “I’m sorry, but I’ll give you all the answers soon.”

I couldn’t help as my curious mind had a thousand questioned primed up for Eve, but even I could admit a utility closet wasn’t the best location to have them answered.

I pointed out from the crack in the door we were looking through, “Hey, looks like things are clearing up.” I turned back to Eve, “Can you sense anyone else coming this way?”

Eve nodded, but opened the closet door anyways, “Yes, but this is still our best chance.”

We both ran for the lift and hit the call button as fast as we could, and we waited for a few tense seconds before the door opened and we rushed inside just in time to see another line of soldiers round the next corner. The doors closed behind us, and we both let out sighs of relief as the lift rumbled and started moving forward.

We watched on the display screen that showed where we were traveling through

The Judicator

, up over and then down towards the secure command center.

We made it about halfway to our destination when the lift stopped with a little chime, then opened on another floor, revealing four clandestine agents standing before the doorway.

Once again they didn’t have time to react as Eve manifested four tentacles and pulled them all inside the lift as I rushed to shut the doors quickly.

When the lift was moving again, I looked back to see Eve holding all four agents in the air with her tentacles wrapped around their necks while covering their mouths. Three of the agents were normal humanoid aliens, choking and clawing at the tentacle on their necks as they were strangled, while the fourth was a huge, blocky kind of alien with forearms that reached to the floor, so rather than choke him out, Eve snapped his neck quickly. The three remaining agents tried to kick after Eve, and one tried to pull her pistol out, but Eve snapped her neck too. With only two left, Eve fully clamped down on their necks then, and I heard a terrible crunching noise that stopped all resistance, replaced by post-death twitching.

Eve tossed the four bodies behind her, then took a step forward and turned my face away from them with a gentle tentacle.

“Don’t look at them, baby, just focus on me—on our future, okay?” Eve said delicately, and I could see in her eyes she was concerned—not for the killing of course, but what it was doing to me.

I shook my head slowly, “I’m fine Eve, let’s just see this through.” I insisted.

As horrible as it sounded, it felt like I was getting desensitized to the violence already; as a medic back on Earth, I was no stranger to gore and death, so I always had a high tolerance for when things turned violent. Of course it was a little different when the deaths were right in front of you, and yet I seemed to be adapting just fine.

That, or I’d eventually have a massive breakdown when all the action and adrenaline subsided.

Eve gave me a soft smile, and even though she was still trying to keep her distance, she rubbed my shoulders affectionately with her tentacles, trying to sooth me.

“It’s almost done baby, and then we’ll be together and I’ll answer every question you could ever possibly think of.” She said gently.

I smiled then, “You know you always call me baby when you’re trying to take care of me? You call me baby when you’re babying me.” I told her.

Eve’s smiled brightened then, “I know, it just seems to fit better.” She shrugged, “What would you prefer I call you?”

I shrugged too, “I kind of like the variety I guess—darling, baby, my beloved Adam.” My smile shifted into a smirk, “Also helps me gauge your mood a little, and considering how fucking

mysterious

you are all the time, I need all the help I can get.”

Eve trilled a cute giggle—first time I heard it since boarding

The Judicator

, “Well now that I’m conscious of it, don’t you think I’ll work to cover moods better?”

I laughed and shook my head, “Nah, you like your patterns, and I have a feeling you love when I pick up those little details about you—might even be purposefully leaving those clues for me to find.”

Eve’s smile was brilliant, “I wouldn’t say I’m leaving

clues

for you, but I’ll admit I’m trying to remain consistent so you can keep up with my enigmatic nature.” She cocked her head to the side as her smile faded a little, “And you’re the one person in the entire universe I don’t want to have to hide from—no camouflage, no lies, just us open and honest forever.”

I narrowed my gaze at her, “And I’d like for that to be a two-way street you know.”

Eve’s smile fell all the way then as her expression turned serious, “I know, and I promise everything will be revealed when we have time for it—nothing but honesty between us the second we’re free together.”

So far it was nothing but empty promises and endless frustration, but considering we were actively infiltrating

The Judicator

on our way to confront the Lord Generals this plot was rapidly coming to an end, and I’d find out one way or another if I could really trust Eve.

The lift continued unimpeded, and since we were traveling off to the side of the core, soldier traffic lightened significantly.

After checking the coast was clear, Eve and I exited the lift (leaving the four bodies behind), and we continued on down a long, empty hallway.

The hallway seemed rather innocuous—utility closets, robot charging stations, additional storage and supplies, a great place to hide a secure command center. We stopped before a centralized doorway that looked like a huge metal bulkhead to secure hazardous materials.

Eve turned to me, her expression gravely serious, “This is it Adam, the final confrontation.”

I smirked, “The end boss.”

Eve rolled her eyes, “Yes, and our window for success is

very

tight here.” She gestured towards the door, “I’m going to rush in and disable the Lord Generals before they can access the controls to our failsafes, meanwhile you’ll need to watch my back to ensure we have the entire room under our control—make sure the soldiers or technicians inside are behaving properly.”

I nodded along, “And you’re sure they won’t have some heart monitor failsafes attached to our bombs? What if killing the Lord Generals blows up this entire plan?” I pressed.

Eve shook her head slowly, “Once we have control of the room we can work on disabling all our failsafes; we won’t kill the Lord Generals until we’re totally clear of danger.”

So it would be like a weird double hostage situation where we’d threaten the Lord Generals to release us from our constraints while they had us threatened and bound through the failsafe bombs, seeing who would blink or buckle first under the pressure of Eve’s limited power.

Holy shit, this was going to get messy.

Eve held her hand up to prevent any protest, “Once we’re safe, we’ll kill the Lord Generals, and then we’ll need to escape

The Judicator

—get as far away from here as possible and hide away in some distant corner of the universe while the Imperial military reorganizes things to restart the mission.” She nodded once, “Make no mistake, the Lord Generals might be the operational commanders here, but there’s bureaucrats and politicians they answer to who will absolutely want to continue the Predazoan containment mission, and even though they won’t know us personally like the Lord Generals, they’ll know us from the mission reports and won’t be okay with just leaving us alone.”

Exactly as Crisson said, the Empire would

never

stop hunting us—wouldn’t risk losing the impossibly valuable Predazoan asset.

Our best chance was to kill the commanders here, cover our tracks, and escape somewhere in space once we were free of our failsafes—all during the confusion of this mysterious enemy assault.

Eve’s gaze was even, her eyes burning with determination, “Are you ready?”

I took a deep breath, then let it out twice as slowly, steeling myself for the action ahead. I pulled out my proton sword and activated it, finally resolved to use lethal force if it was required—all for the sake of our freedom.

I nodded once, “I’m ready.”

Eve turned to the massive bulkhead and manifested a half dozen tentacles, then stabbed them forward into the heavy metal and ripped them open with relative ease—the metal whining and screeching as it was pulled away, sparks flying as it was pulled away from its wiring.

Eve rushed forward and I was right behind her, and I could see the command center was smaller than most, with a couple dozen technicians manning the computer consoles on the walls, and another dozen armed marines strategically placed as guards throughout the room.

Right beside the doorway was a couple of power armor soldiers, and as Eve rushed past them I moved forward with my enhanced speed and cut their heavy carbine rifles into ribbons before they could even raise them, then I kicked them both square in the chest to send them each flying to the opposite wall, crashing into a computer console.

Once I was cleared of the guards, I moved to join Eve—

But stopped when I saw her standing before a repulser barrier, with the Lord Generals safely inside at their command consoles.

In the moment we paused, the marines in the room all centered around us, pointing their carbine rifles at us—surely loaded with the destabilizing acid rounds.

I stood beside Eve, holding my sword at the ready, wondering what she was waiting for.

“Eve, come on, warp inside—” I started.

But Eve turned to me, eyes confused and wide with fright—almost looking like a scared animal in that moment.

It was then I realized what was going on; Eve wasn’t in control—or lost it at some point. Barely hanging onto her mind as it was consumed by the void, she was just following along the ghost of a plan she could barely remember.

And she miscalculated—she fucked up.

She hadn’t considered the obvious repulser barrier in the secure command center, and with her mind reverting to its primitive state, she couldn’t warp inside—same as how she was trapped in the mobile containment unit back on Congoren.

Eve shrieked at the Lord Generals and bared her fangs at them, extended her claws and pointed her manifested tentacles towards all the soldiers surrounding us—placing me behind her protectively.

But the Lord Generals didn’t look concerned—they didn’t even look surprised. Behind the grand, central command console that looked like a mix between a throne and a judge’s bench, the three Lord Generals glowered at us, with Fextrenn on the right, Belmond on the left, and as always, the half-mechanical goliath Kei-Torruk in the center.

Kei-Torruk steepled his cybernetic hands together, resting them underneath his large, metallic face-mask, looking like he was auditioning for the role of a galactic supervillain.

“So, it’s finally come to this.” He said darkly, an edge to his digitized voice, and the promise violence not far behind it.