Volume 2: Gamma-17, Chapter 2.3

What was supposed to be a fun last day aboard

The Radiance

before we headed down to the planet together ended up as a sad little fight. I told Eve the new plan with her core biomass remaining aboard the ship while we took some scout-form locked away in a containment unit, and she was quite upset over the whole deal. She trilled at me with her usual gibberish, more upset than I’d ever seen her, and I could see her having difficulty conveying what she wanted to say to me, but the message was clear; she’d been excited to go down planet-side with me, and now that had been taken away from her. I tried to calm or reassure her, let her know if she followed my orders and behaved aboard

The Radiance

, she’d eventually be allowed more liberties, but she wasn’t interested in my reasoning. She ended up pushing me away and made me leave her containment cell, then once I was back on the other side of the forcefield, she flung herself on the bed, facedown in her pillows, kicking her little feet in a sad tantrum. It nearly broke my heart seeing her so upset, but my hands were tied.

Still, good news I proved Tillia’s fear unfounded; I’d deeply upset Evie, but she was still gentle as ever with me—no danger at all.

For the first time since I’d been aboard

The Radiance

, I spent the night in my crew quarters. My quarters were spacious—the equivalent of officer quarters, apparently. It was a little bigger than my old apartment back on earth with a den/living area—and another large, fancy futuristic TV—a small study with a computer console and desk for my laptop, a fancy bathroom with a walk-in shower that could turn into a jacuzzi tub—different modes available for whatever relaxation I might need. And a surprisingly spacious bedroom with a queen-sized bed that could adjust to any comfort level I could imagine.

Fancy, futuristic, probably among the nicest quarters on

The Radiance

, it felt strangely empty without Evie—it wasn’t home without her. When I finally went to bed for the night, sleep found me rather uneasily.

***

We exited void space through the warp channel and remained in orbit around one of Entana’s moons, staying in some kind of stealth mode so

The Radiance’s

presence wouldn’t be noticed. Imperial core worlds saw frequent spaceship traffic, with lanes of ships leaving or arriving the planet through designated zones—it was all very organized. Since our presence was meant to be a secret, we’d be taking shuttles down to the planet, avoiding the designated docking or landing zones. Apparently, that was wildly illegal, but this was all for the sake of the clandestine mission.

The teams all met up in the shuttle bay for the final briefing before departure. There would be six teams heading down planet-side, one was command and communications, four would maintain the perimeter around the capital and offer secondary intelligence gathering, and finally my team would be the primary investigation team.

On my team would be me of course, then my friends Doctors Tillia and Zyno, Doctor Wit the shark alien—the head researcher for the team, and then Doctor Runa, one of those rock aliens; I hadn’t spoken to her much before, knew she was on the command council of researchers, but she seemed more afraid of Evie than anyone. Aside from the research team, we’d also have a security escort. Clandestine Agent Kotlokk was a friend of mine, and he’d be on our team, along with a couple other agents, four marines, and two power armor soldiers. Mostly everyone was wearing regular street clothes (futuristic alien street clothes at that) except the soldiers who’d be dressed as private security, with minimal tactical gear that wouldn’t arouse suspicion. The power armor of course wasn’t stealthy at all, but thanks to the magic of technology, they would just wear these fancy backpacks that would transform into mobile power armor suits. Made me wish I was given some cool power armor.

Doctor Wit and Agent Kotlokk would be our primary team leaders down planet-side, but they’d be following Eve’s directions or discoveries during the investigation—who would be following my commands, provided she was properly behaving.

Eve had finally calmed down when I came to collect her once we were out of void space. It was a surprisingly simple matter for her to create the little scout-form; she held her hand up, and a little black orb bubbled before me, and in no time at all she’d created a new form that looked exactly as she did when I first met her. The little scout-form moved around seemingly independent of any of Evie’s commands, almost like its own person. But I knew it was all part of her hivemind—like a detached hand or something. I placed the scout-form in the containment unit, and I saw Eve winced once I locked it and the repulser field engaged. I tried pulling the core Evie into a hug and tell her I was sorry, but she was still pretty upset over the whole thing. I ended up leaving her amidst several apologies that were barely acknowledged.

In the shuttle bay, I carried around my pack and the containment unit that held Eve’s scout-form, and I was surprised to see how curious it seemed—looking all around every which way, snapping from one side to the next. Another twinge of guilt grabbed me as I realized this was the first time she had seen the rest of the ship, so obviously she’d be curious.

The shuttles looked rather unremarkable, surprisingly minimalist—like a black, metallic oval with two chrome spheres placed evenly on each side.

I dropped my pack in front of our shuttle, and some robot took it and stowed it away for me, then I turned and got into the shuttle, holding onto the containment unit. I took a seat beside Tillia and secured Evie’s containment unit in the seat next to me.

“Didn’t want to stow her away?” Tillia asked mildly.

I sighed, “I still feel bad over the whole thing—leaving her behind. What little I have of her now, I’m not going to treat as luggage.”

Tillia reached over and grabbed my hand, stroking the back of it with her thumb, “She’ll still get to see the planet—explore like you two wanted. It won’t be all bad.”

I gestured to the box beside me, “Would you be okay going on vacation as a head in a box?”

She smiled at that, “Oh, this is a vacation now, is it?”

I smiled too, “It’s my first alien planet, damn right it’s a vacation.”

“It isn’t a vacation for us—lives are at stake here.” A marine across from me—a big rock alien named Brujo snapped.

I glared at the man, “According to you lot, I’m risking my life every day with Alpha-03. How about you cut me a little slack? Back on earth, we use humor to decompress stressful situations.”

“Yeah, well we’re not on earth now are we?” The marine beside Brujo added. This one was a large red crab alien with tall eyestalks that glowered down at me, with one large pincer and a normal hand on the other side. His name was Lugnore.

Tillia squeezed my hand, “Ignore them. The research team has complete faith in you—we all trust you.” She smiled again, “We’ve got your back.”

The rest of our team filed into the shuttle and took their seats—Doctor Zyno late to the party same as usual. He sat next to Eve’s containment unit, and the little scout-form gazed up at him with a big, glowing yellow eye. He smiled at the little thing and patted the unit affectionately, “Morning Eve. Ready for the mission?”

As a response, the scout-form bristled all over in a meaning none of us understood.

Zyno turned to me, “So, your first drop; let’s see if you handle it was well as your first time through void space.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “Is it jarring?”

Tillia giggled beside me—still holding my hand, “No, it’s not bad at all—you’ll barely feel it. But we are all curious how the human will handle his first time.”

I grinned at her, “Eager to pop my cherry?”

Tillia smiled brilliantly, a purple blush rising on her cheeks, “Among other things.” She leaned over to my ear, “We can finally have that date once we’re planet-side.”

Before I could continue our flirting, the doors to the shuttle closed, and our pilot ran through some safety checks over the coms. At the front of the shuttle, Doctor Wit and Agent Kotlokk were looking over a hologram tablet together, finalizing some plan or other before turning to the rest of the crew.

“We’re going to land on the outer-edge of Tantalltera in an old industrial park; construction was recently decommissioned due to some company dispute, so we should be clear for arrival with minimal chance of discovery.” Agent Kotlokk explained, and the hologram on his tablet projected in the middle of the shuttle so we could all see the landing site, and a map of the surrounding area. “Command is going to touch down first, then we’re second to drop once we’re clear.” He turned to me, “Once we touch down planet-side, we’re going to need you to activate stealth-mode on Alpha-03’s containment unit.”

I already knew what he was talking about; it would blacken the box so no one could see inside, but Eve could still see out like window tinting back on earth, but much more sophisticated. Still, it darkened the interior a little bit, and I didn’t like the idea of Eve just staying in the dark for too long—didn’t like the idea of her staying stuck in the box, but that ship already sailed.

“Everyone clear and secure?” The pilot called over the coms, and we all confirmed we were properly buckled, “Alright, prepared for lift.”

There was a gentle hum and quick hiss, and then our shuttle floated up as it departed the shuttle bay. I looked out the small viewing port so I could see

The Radiance

from the outside for the first time. It really was a massive vessel, with three long ovals in a triangle that curved in on themselves all connected by some rounded cylinder in the middle. The ship was metallic black, and as our shuttle moved away from it, I completely lost sight of it—as though it was invisible from a distance.

I’d been looking forward to feeling zero-G, but apparently the shuttles had the same artificial gravity as

The Radiance

. Zyno had tried to explain how it worked several times to me, but it still always sounded like magic. Apparently there was some…

pulser field

built into its walls that pressed a strange kind of energy inwards, simulating gravity. Really, we were just being blasted inside by some invisible force over and over to keep us all grounded. It was so subtle, it was almost impossible to feel, except during power surges in the middle of maintenance cycles, you might feel a slightly more forceful pulse.

Exactly as Tillia said, I barely felt a thing. Our shuttle rocketed around the moon and towards the planet so fast I blinked and nearly missed the trip. We continued down into Entana’s atmosphere but stayed high in the sky while we waited for the command team to finish. A few minutes later, we got the all clear and touched down in the industrial park beside them.

We excited the shuttle quickly—our gear already packed up neat beside it—and once we were clear, the shuttle lifted to the sky and quickly turned invisible.

And just like that, we successfully infiltrated the planet.

The command team was going to establish a base in the industrial park itself—classic spy trailers and the like—and was already getting to work setting up. Our team was to head into the city and would be staying in hotels, acting like tourists part of some off-world college science team.

Our team certainly looked like tourists, all wearing our sci-fi street clothes. My pants were like black silk jeans, and I wore a red jacket-robe mix that almost seemed like something an elf would wear in some fantasy epic—it was all wildly comfortable. Doctor Tillia was gorgeous as always, wearing a black glittering sweater dress. Doctor Zyno wore a blue jumpsuit that somehow made him look every bit the science nerd. Doctor Wit wore a silken robe-suit that made him look like the dad of the group. The agents all wore similarly plain clothes, while the marines wore minimalistic tactical gear—apparently it wasn’t uncommon for tour groups to hire security when visiting other planets, especially if they were wealthy. The power armor soldiers wore the most plain outfits like futuristic zip-polos, with their large black backpacks that housed the mobile armor suits.

“Alright, from here we’re going to take public transportation and get settled in our hotel. We’ll establish our communication network with the other teams, but it’s going to be an easy day; we want to secure our locations before we move onto investigation.” Agent Kotlokk explained.

We all made our way out of the industrial park, and I got my first real view of Tantalltera; it was a classic futuristic city as I’d ever imagine it. The sky was pale purple, clean with barely a spattering of clouds. All around us there were massive white buildings that looked flawless and pristine, with lots of bulbous structure bubbles on top of half of them, and even some floating orb buildings moving slowly through the sky. The walkways were all even and clean, with blue grasses and trees framing them all. There were a few people walking along the ground, some vehicles that looked so sleek they hardly had any details, but there were a lot more vehicles floating through the sky—all manner of smooth flying cars, shuttles, and even some big ships. We were heading towards a monorail with a sleek silver train that hovered over a blue glowing rail system. All around us were every kind of alien I could imagine—even more variety than aboard The

Radiance.

Tillia giggled and closed my mouth with her finger, “Adam, dear, you’re gaping like an open-mouth geknarr.”

I shook my head slowly, barely able to answer, “You all saw the planet I came from; this is like a dream—something I’d expect from a science fiction movie. Can’t believe it’s all…

real

.”

Zyno chuckled beside me, “And this is just an

average

core world; there’s marvels and wonders in Imperial space I imagine might damn near make your head explode.”

I held up the blackened containment unit so Evie could hopefully see better, “Are you seeing all this?” I asked the box in amazement. I had no idea what all she saw or experienced from her time on NX-947b, but if her only planetary memories were of earth, I’d imagine she should be plenty impressed too.

We made it up to the monorail and I was pleased to see public transport was all free on the futuristic planet. We filed in together, the agents making it a point to look and sound like excited tourists as they peered over their digital maps. I meanwhile didn’t need to put on an act at all to show my amazement.

Smooth as the shuttle, the monorail drifted through the massive city so fast I could hardly make out any details while we travelled. Entana itself was about twenty-percent larger than earth, and being a high-tech utopia, large cities sprawled over nearly every landmass. The capital itself—like the

entire

city was bigger than Texas back on earth. We’d have our work cut out for us trying to find Gamma-17 through all this mess. To be honest, I had no idea how we’d begin—that would all be on Eve, and we still had no idea what all abilities she had to track the other Predazoans. In no time at all, we made it to the heart of the downtown area of Tentalltera, and we left the monorail and made our way to the hotel.

The hotel was massive and fancier than anything back on earth—better than any Vegas hotel I could imagine. It was another one of those super tall buildings with a sphere on top, and our reservations were for a handful of rooms up towards the top of the sphere—wanting a high-point for communication and reconnaissance. The inside of the hotel was all silks and structure, with alien art on the walls and a massive platinum fountain statue in the center of the lobby that was at least five stories tall. Doctor Wit—the tour group chaperone—confirmed our reservations at the front desk and brought us all our key fobs that were basically just little silver disks that locked to the back of our hands.

We made our way over to the elevators and split up from there, all on the same floor, we’d grabbed rooms at every corner of the sphere for maximum vantage.

“Once we’re settled, let’s meet up for dinner or something when we’re free—maybe grab a drink at the hotel bar.” Tillia offered to me and Zyno. She was to be rooming with Runa, while I was thankfully paired up with Zyno.

“Oh definitely. I know we’re on a serious mission and all, but I’m still going to enjoy myself every bit as though it were a vacation.” I confirmed.

Tillia smiled, gave me a brief hug, then left with Runa. Me and Zyno found our room and unloaded inside. The room was black, red, white and gold, all geometric shapes and comfort. We both had a queen-sized bed to ourselves that were actually floating and rotating on these strange black circular pads. We had a huge bathroom and shower, a hologram TV that had 12,000 channels with all kinds of Imperial entertainment, and we even had a balcony. I threw my stuff on the bed by the window and walked out to the balcony. I held up Eve’s containment unit, and seeing we were all clear, deactivated stealth-mode so I could see her again. “Quite the view, right?”

The little scout-form didn’t seem overly impressed or excited—it didn’t really do much at all but look around. It made very quiet trills I could only hear if I put my ear to the box, and didn’t seem to have any personality the true Eve had. I know they all told me this was still part of her—connected to the hivemind and all, but it just wasn’t the same. Everyone always made the comparison it would be like having her hand with me—connected to the core—and now I could say it was about as much fun as just having someone’s hand with you. The little black orb looked around a little bit more, then curled into itself and promptly went to sleep. I sighed and brought her back inside and placed her on the side table, then sat down in the recliner and started browsing through the alien TV.

“It’s not the same, is it?” Zyno asked, busy unpacking and getting settled to make the room a home away from home.

I shook my head slowly, “Not even a little bit. Like, I know it’s connected to her core, and she’s seeing everything with me, but she isn’t responding the way she normally would.”

Zyno walked over to look at the sleeping scout-form in her box, then turned to me, “Hopefully it’s just for a cycle or so. Once we’ve established she can be commanded properly, I’m sure command will authorize her biomass core to come down in person.”

I chuckled at that, “Yeah, if she stops throwing little tantrums long enough to prove herself useful.”

He smiled, then took a seat beside me. “Can I ask you something?” I nodded for him to continue. “How do you see your relationship with Eve?”

That was a question I asked myself quite frequently. I tapped at my chin as I thought over my answer, “When I first found her, she was definitely more like a pet to me; she was in a form like you see here, and then she slowly grew and changed into larger forms, but it took her a few weeks—or a couple cycles until she started looking more like a…

person

, I guess.”

Zyno chuckled in response, “The deadliest lifeform in the universe, and she was a pet to you.”

I smiled, “She never seemed dangerous to me. Honestly, back then she seemed like quite the simple lifeform; it surprised me the alien life I found was so basic, so rudimentary. From our fiction back on earth, we always expected aliens to be some hyper-intelligent, super technologically advanced race. And then there was Evie, who reminded me of a little injured racoon I took care of as a kid.”

“And now that she’s more of a person, you no longer see her as a pet, do you?”

I shook my head, “No, but it’s weird to call her my daughter.” I turned to face him, “Do you have children or anything?”

“I remain unbound; hard to start up a family working in a super clandestine Imperial thinktank anyway.”

“Me neither—like, I didn’t have any real kids of my own back on earth. Being that I’ve never been a father, sometimes it feels like that’s what I am to Evie since I don’t have much to compare it with. But at the same time, it’s so much different than that.” I shrugged, “I mean I’m her handler after all; my job is to command her on missions—keep her obedient. That’s definitely not what a father should be doing.”

Zyno snorted out a quick laugh, “You never met

my

father.”

I quirked up an eyebrow, “More alien lore? Daddy issues exist through the Empire too?”

He chuckled at that, “He was a military scientist; competition was the heart of growth in his eyes. And with nine brothers and sisters, you can imagine how much competition there was for his approval.”

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“Then joining the Predazoan research project was for his approval or something?”

Zyno shook his head, “Nah, I wanted to surpass him—and I

have

, by the way. These fringe science projects are considered the pinnacle of success in the scientific community.”

“But how will you tell him that if it’s all some secretive black-site shit?”

Zyno shrugged, “I don’t necessarily have to tell him; I know my own success, and that’s good enough.” He turned to me and smirked, “Or I just wait for the project to be declassified, then rub it all in his face.”

I laughed at that, “Is that likely, with what all we’re involved in?”

He nodded, “Oh yeah, that won’t be a problem.” He waved a hand out vaguely, “The Empire has existed for some hundred thousand years; they aren’t afraid of a couple stains in their records, they have too much history to even care to keep it clean—too long a timeline to maintain it meticulously. Once a clandestine project is considered complete or decommissioned, no matter what happens or how it all ended, the Empire always declassifies their projects after a hundred years.”

“A full century away, will your father even be around that long?”

Zyno chuckled, “I think you’re forgetting about our technological advancements; most people live three centuries easy, and those really dedicated to living can last a full millennium.”

“Hey, maybe I can live long enough to see humanity join the Empire after all.”

“Maybe.” He smiled, eyes black eyes twinkling with amusement. He stood up and walked over to stand before Eve’s containment unit, “You think it’s safe to leave her here while we head to dinner?”

“You’re asking

me

?”

He shrugged, “You’re her handler; you make the call.”

I stood and joined him and looked down at the little sleeping scout-form. I pressed the button to reactivate stealth-mode, turning the box black once more.

“Yeah, let’s go have some fun.”