The Deadliest Lifeform in the Universe Loves Me

Volume 6: Gamma-11, Chapter 6.4

Another couple of days passed in that lonely cell before I was greeted by a convoy of a dozen power armor soldiers led by that angry red alien lieutenant pushing a mobile containment unit. I briefly considered being belligerent, but I knew that wouldn’t accomplish anything. Instead, without a word of protest, I got into their cell, and they led me back out into the hallways of The Judicator.

“Where have you been keeping Eve?” I asked mildly, trying not to sound like I was being demanding, but also not wanting to sound weak or scared.

Surprisingly, the red lieutenant answered me, “A cell similar to yours, sent back there after questioning.” He said.

I nodded along, “And how did her questioning go?” I asked.

No surprise then, but he ignored my second question.

I’d forgotten how massive The Judicator was—several times larger than The Radiance, and it even put Jessipie-90 to shame. It took forever to get anywhere that wasn’t right next door; we had to move along a few different moving walkways and take several high-speed lifts before we finally made it to the central court chambers they brought us to during the court martial.

The giant automated doors parted as the convoy pushed me on through. Right away I could see we wouldn’t have much of an audience; the general seating was pretty much empty on all sides. Up at the front there was a collection of people to the sides of the main bench I didn’t recognize—advisors or judges or something I assumed. And then in the center of it all, there they were, the Lord Generals in all their ostentatious glory.

In the very center was the massive Kei-Torruk, a hulk of a man over eight feet tall and bulky, with all manner of cybernetic enhancements, including fully robotic arms, a large breathing mask with tubes running out to his back, and even a large, mechanized monocle. Kei-Torruk always looked like he should’ve been a warlord fighting on the front lines of some brutal war-torn world, rather than some bureaucrat behind a judge’s bench.

On the right was Fextrenn, a female, anthropomorphic fox alien with a large fan of fluffy tails behind her. Looked like she was a mix between an elegant Japanese fox goddess and some furry’s wet dream.

On the left was Belmond, a surprisingly normal looking alien man with deep blue skin, a bald, ridged head, and three eyes arranged in a triangle on his face.

The convoy continued pushing me forward until I was only a dozen feet before the Lord Generals’ bench, and once they had me set in place they all turned and promptly left me there, with only the red angry alien lieutenant beside me.

Fextrenn nodded towards the man beside me, “Thank you lieutenant, you’re dismissed.”

The lieutenant bowed deeply, “By your leave.” He said respectfully, then turned and took a seat in the front row of the general assembly—the only occupant now.

No surprise, none of the Lord Generals looked happy to see me. Kei-Torruk didn’t waste any time as he activated several holograms to display before us; one was the schematics for Jessipie-90, another was mapping data for the Derrion System, and a couple others were just scrolling text—mission data.

“Agent Adam Samson, you are hereby called before the court to explain your actions on your recent mission that led to the destruction of the Derrion System, along with the loss of a khrona crystal cargo shipment with a value estimated around 8.2 quintillion credits. How do you respond to the charges of gross negligence, destruction of protected property, solar system-level environmental damages, and a class-4 war crime?” Kei-Turrok growled through his voice modulator and breathing apparatus—absolutely still sounding like an evil Sith Lord when he spoke.

I looked around briefly, seeing no one coming to my defense, “Shouldn’t I have a lawyer or some shit to help defend me?”

Fextrenn shook her head, “This is a military tribunal court; your commanding officers will carry out the investigation, rehabilitation, reprimanding, and punishment if needed altogether while you remain in our service.” She held her hands out in a presenting manner, “Basically, it starts as a debriefing but then moves through different court processes depending on discoveries up to and including demotion, discharge, or incarceration.”

Well, that sounded like a bunch of nonsense, but I would guess the gist of it was they wanted to keep everything in-house—prevent their secret clandestine operations from leaking I would imagine.

I crossed my arms and glared up at the Lord Generals, “So am I charged with those crimes or are we just started off this debriefing throwing all the blame my way?”

Fextrenn shook her head slowly, “You haven’t been formally charged yet, however you will remain in our custody while under suspicion for those crimes until we can resolve the matter.”

Kei-Torruk leaned forward on the bench, “Once again, how do you respond to those charges?”

I threw my hands up in a frustrated gesture, “Are you serious? It’s all bullshit!”

Belmond nodded once, “So you believe you had no part in the destruction of the Derrion System?”

I crossed my arms and tried to soften my angry glare, “How the fuck would I, a simple human, ever be the cause of an entire system being destroyed—by a fucking void singularity of all things!”

Kei-Torruk’s monocle scope seemed to narrow its focus on me, “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” He pressed a button and another hologram appeared, this one looked like it was a regular mission report, even had a picture of Durgo in the upper corner, “We were able to recover most of Commander Durgo’s mission reports since he synced them with Private Willa’s data pad.”

I rolled my eyes, “Of fucking course.”

Even after his death, Durgo found a way to screw me over.

“We have a pretty good grasp on the mission at least until he was killed by Gamma-20 thanks to his impeccable record keeping, and we have to admit we found a major flaw in your operational proceedings right at the beginning of the mission.” Fextrenn confirmed.

I tilted my head to the side, “What the hell are you talking about?”

Kei-Torruk’s voice modulator hissed, “Is it true you separated from Predazoan Asset Alpha-03 at the very start of the mission, leaving her in the void while you continued on the mission without her?”

I nodded my head slowly, “Yeah? The warp gate was collapsing; we wouldn’t have been able to escape or survive if Eve hadn’t stayed behind to directly control the warp reactor to stabilize the gate for us.”

The little assistants or judges or whatever around the Lord Generals started typing away frantically then—as though I’d just given them a damning piece of evidence they couldn’t believe I volunteered so freely.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me!” I nearly shouted.

“Agent Adam, you are the Predazoan handler; why did you think it was a good idea to separate yourself from the asset?” Kei-Torruk pressed.

I pushed my head into the repulser barrier I was so frustrated with what I was dealing with now—couldn’t believe they actually turned it all around on me after all.

“We would have fucking died if we didn’t escape from void space then!” I insisted.

Fextrenn shook her head, “You didn’t take into consideration alternative plans that would’ve kept you and the asset together for the mission?” She asked.

“What alternatives? It’s not like we had time to plan out how to escape the void while Krook Hook was being destroyed—every minute mattered.” I said, then waved up to them, “Your mission leader, Durgo, certainly didn’t have any other—”

“Commander Durgo wasn’t the Predazoan handler.” Kei-Torruk interrupted me quickly, then pointed a mechanical hand my way, “You are, and the fact you allowed yourself to be separated from Alpha-03 shows a major lapse in judgment.”

I hit my head against the repulser barrier again, “What else could we have done? Our ship was moments away from being destroyed, and Eve was the only one who could stabilize the warp gate so we could escape.”

Belmond looked down at his desk, as though reading off something, “She could have stabilized the warp reactor first, then escaped with you. She could have gone out in the lifepod with the rest of your team while manually opening the collapsing warp gate. There are any number of different options you could have taken, instead you chose the quickest and easiest, leaving you and your team without your most important member for the rest of the mission.” He countered.

I wanted to rip my hair out then, grinding my teeth as I answered them, “Eve said it was the only way she could hold the gate open, by staying behind to directly manipulate the failing warp reactor.”

Kei-Torruk shook his head slowly, “If you believe the all-powerful Predazoan was so limited in her abilities, you’re vastly underestimating her power—that, or you allowed her to manipulate you once again. Either way, very poor show for the supposed handler of such an important asset.”

I bashed my forehead against the repulser barrier once more, “You people are the ones who’re limiting her abilities. If it wasn’t for that stupid inhibitor field, she could’ve easily gotten us out of void space while keeping us all safe.”

Belmond shook his head slowly, “We’ve run the simulations, even with the inhibitor field in place, Alpha-03’s abilities are well within our requirements to complete these containment missions.”

“Fuck your simulations!” I snapped.

Kei-Torruk didn’t seem amused by my outburst, “Moving onto mission operations after you boarded Jessipie-90, we’re finding it difficult to clear you of responsibility for Doctor Hennor’s death.”

I rolled my eyes then, “Oh, give me a break...”

Belmond looked down at his tablet on the desk once again, “We’re inclined to agree with Durgo’s speculation over the cause of death; fatal void trauma induced sudden cardiac arrest.”

Fextrenn nodded along, “So the question is was the time he spent unprotected in void space unavoidable, or was it caused by your reckless decision to separate from Alpha-03?”

I shook my head slowly, not even able to voice any kind of response or defense this was all so ridiculous. Seriously, I knew they were going to try to throw the blame at me any way they could, but the mental gymnastics they were doing here were so unbelievable they seemed downright delusional.

I waved off towards them, “Sounds like you already have all your judgments and beliefs firm in place, putting all the blame on me at every possible opportunity—don’t even know why we’re wasting time with this show.”

Kei-Torrul glowered at me, and it sounded like his breathing apparatus was letting out a puff of steam, “This is anything but a show, Agent Adam, this is a military tribunal court, and as a member of the Imperial military, you need to take this seriously.”

I shrugged then, “Why? It’s obvious you all are just trying to find an excuse to get rid of me—always have, always will until you get your way. Why not just skip all this shit and zap my memories away and then send me back to Earth? If I’m really such a liability, why not scrap our whole mission operation and put Eve in some containment cell while you all try to figure out how you’d ever contain another Predazoan without us.” I said flippantly, not really sure what all I was trying to accomplish at this point, but I knew I didn’t matter what I said anyway; I was just a pawn in their game and they were going to move me where they wanted regardless of the facts.

From the very start they wanted to get rid of me and try to control Eve on their own.

Kei-Torruk bristled up like he was about to protest, but Fextrenn held up a hand to put a pause on his tirade.

“Agent Adam, I believe there’s been a misunderstanding somewhere along the way.” She said mildly.

I snorted a quick laugh, “What, you gonna tell me how important I actually am to the mission and how we’re all on the same team working for the same ends? I’m not going to drink that Kool-Aid, lady.”

Fextrenn shook her head slowly, and I could see then it almost looked like the Lord Generals were amused then, though they were trying to hide it.

“Before, sending you back to Earth after a memory wipe might’ve been a possibility, but after your Predazoan genetic enhancements, there’s no way we could ever safely release you to a pre-enlightened planet.” She confirmed.

Any amusement I felt over the situation drained away quickly, and suddenly a feeling of dread settled in the bottom of my stomach like a lump of lead.

“What the hell does that mean?” I pressed.

Fextrenn looked like she was going to continue on diplomatically, but Kei-Torruk cut her off this time instead.

“It means since you have Predazoan DNA in your body, you’re now classified as an Imperial military asset—same as Alpha-03. As such, rather than be free to return to Earth in the event you’re dismissed or discharged, you’d need to remain in containment as dangerous military property—that or be dissected to have those Predazoan cells completely removed from your body.” He explained.

I couldn’t believe it then and I felt my veins freeze up at the idea of this new possible future. It wasn’t like I wanted to return to Earth and have my memory wiped, but Eve always said she would burn down the entire Empire to get back to me—and I fully believed she would. Now, even that grim future was taken away from me. Instead, I would end up in some Imperial military prison in the blackest of all black sites, sent to some hole in whatever distant galaxy they imprisoned their most dangerous assets I would imagine—probably so far out in deep space even Eve wouldn’t be able to find me before my immortality enzyme burned out. That, or they would fucking dissect me to take out that little biomass Eve implanted in me for that tortuous transformation, and considering how integrated those cells were in my body now, I couldn’t imagine I would actually survive the procedure—not that the Lord Generals would care either way.

It was probably obvious on my face how demoralized I was over this new discovery, and Fextrenn nodded along, “Yes, Agent Adam, your options are now limited and bleak, so it would behoove you to take this tribunal court seriously and work with us, rather than fight against us at every turn.” She said.

I leaned back against the repulser barrier then, feeling utterly defeated. The Lord Generals held all the cards—all the power, and my only ally in all this was the insane, Outsider god I was in love with who suddenly decided she wanted to start living life more like a statue.

I felt both wildly alone and utterly overwhelmed, but considering all I’d survived thus far, I still wasn’t going to give up.

Ignoring the fear and dread I felt over the horrible future hanging in front of me, I straightened up in that little containment cell and looked up to the judges and held my head up high.

“Very well, let’s continue, shall we?”