The Deadliest Lifeform in the Universe Loves Me

Volume 5: Gamma-20, Chapter 5.28

The command center was more centralized than pretty much anything else, so it took us no time at all to make it to the cafeteria. Once we were there, we saw the survivors hiding behind a deployed repulser shield, with Brunt and Toku keeping over a dozen drone forms away with nothing more than a couple plasma torches.

I was surprised they were doing so well, the streams of blue flames seemed to be painful for the drones as they were cautiously keeping their distance, shrieking out loudly anytime the plasma burned them.

“Over here!” Lummy called out, waving behind the repulser shield.

Bryx threw down another repulser shield and everyone in our group rushed behind it, and with the drones in between us, we pressed them from both sides, trying to keep them contained for now.

Using my enhanced perception, I sped up my reaction times and was able to pick off two of the drones rather quickly, and Bryx followed up by killing one of his own. I was surprised to see Durgo, Roote, and Willa (only armed with plasma pistols) were able to overwhelm a drone together after it had been damaged by Brunt’s plasma torch, causing its form to lose stability until it liquefied on the floor.

By then the drones were reacting to us and could see they were in danger now; they decided to disengage from their prey and started leaping up to the ceiling, clambering after a vent to escape.

“Adam, you’ve gotta stop one!” Zyno called out.

Knowing the carbine rifle would just destroy the cells Zyno needed, I threw my proton blade after one of the escaping drones, sticking it to the wall.

“Contain it, quick!” Zyno pressed.

The drone split itself apart to escape the blade and head back for the vent. Moving as fast as I could, I pulled out my second proton blade and the repulser shield disc and jumped up after it, pushing my legs so hard I slammed into the ceiling with surprising force. I slashed at the escaping drone, slicing off two tentacles, and as we fell together, I threw the repulser barrier down to keep the little squiggly limbs trapped in the dome shield against the floor.

“Hurry, grab whatever sensor or tools you need, I don’t know how long I can hold it like this!” I declared, pressing the shield dome down with all my might as the two tentacles reformed into a single mass, looking like a black snake with a half-dozen yellow eyes haphazardly placed on its head.

“We’ll escort you.” Bryx announced, then pointed out a couple others, “Willa, Roote and you Brunt, come with us.”

Moving with incredible haste, Zyno with his four guards rushed out of the cafeteria, leaving me there to try and hold the discarded drone form down.

The weird drone-snake was pushing up like a coiled spring, and I could feel my muscles burning with the effort to keep it secured.

Durgo and Gadow rushed over to me and helped keep the dome shield from getting pushed off, then looked up to the Jessipie-90 crew as they watched in horror.

“You, Toku, come and help secure Adam, use your weight to keep him down on the ground.” Durgo ordered.

Toku nodded along and came running over and nearly crushed me with his weight, pressing me back into the ground.

Even with all of us trying to hold the barrier in place, the snake-drone lunged up with incredible force, lifting the dome up an inch before we slammed it back to the ground.

“Here, hold it down for a few seconds, let me grab the other repulser barrier.” Durgo said.

“What are you planning?” I asked, but he was already rushing away.

The snake-drone snapped up again, causing the dome to rise once more, and I put so much force into my muscles my visions started to darken, and it felt like I was about to burst a blood vessel.

Durgo returned with the repulser disc and held it over the dome, “We need to time this carefully; when I tell you to move back, get out of the way as quickly as you can.” He instructed, then looked up at me, “Ready?”

I nodded, and he nodded too, “Alright, move!” Durgo’s voice modulator crackled.

Me, Gadow and Toku moved away from the dome shield right as Durgo activated the other repulser barrier, creating a second dome over the first. The two shields seemed to shine and spark against each wildly to the point I couldn’t even see the snake-drone inside.

“What the hell did you do?” I asked.

Durgo’s voice modulator hissed slowly as he let out a relieved sigh, “I deployed another shield facing the opposite direction as the first, having the barriers repel against each other to force the bottom one down.” He gestured to the two flashing domes, “It’ll do for now, but it’s going to burn their power cells out quickly.”

I looked over towards the cafeteria entrance, “Then we better hope Zyno gets back here fast.”

The rest of the crew made their way towards us, some of them crying, most looking beyond worn and weary. There was just Lummy, Saba, Zemman, and Num left.

“Is this everyone?” Gadow asked.

Lummy nodded slowly, tears streaming down her face, “We lost Wynana in the hallway, snatched up in a vent same as Vola.” She told us.

I readied my carbine rifle, keeping an eye on the vents around us, “I’m pretty sure we’re fine for now, but we’ll need to get everyone to the command center as soon as we can—after Zyno scans the remains of the drone form.”

“What are you going to do once you know where the monster’s hiding?” Gadow asked.

I looked over to Durgo, and he nodded once, “Now that Gamma-20 is taking hostile actions against us, we must do something to try and contain or kill the Predazoan. Forgetting the mission, your crew would never be able to complete their work on repairing the warp reactor with these threats moving around the ship.” Durgo said seriously, sounding surprisingly calm. “We die either way unless we make a stand now.”

There was another power surge that caused the lights to flicker, making Durgo’s words seem even more ominous.

Gadow sighed as he slowly shook his head, “I know, I just...” He looked over at us, looking so totally exhausted then, “20 years of work, everything we’ve done, and for what?”

“If this doesn’t count as an emergency, I don’t know what will.” I said, then smirked, “Besides, you had that 8% surplus anyways, right? So long as we don’t destroy or damage more than 8% of your cargo, you all should be good.”

Gadow couldn’t help but smile too in response, “Right, that part will look good on our reports, but breaking protocol to allow mercenaries in the storage sector will be hard to justify to the company regardless of the circumstances.”

I shrugged, “Well, look at it this way, if we can’t fix the warp reactor by the time the warp gate collapses into a singularity, does it even matter who does what with the cargo?”

Lummy’s eyes grew wide, “Wait, what the hell did you say about a collapsed warp gate?”

Before I could get into a proper explanation, Zyno and his escort returned to the cafeteria carrying a duffle bag that was overflowing with tools and gear.

Zyno stopped before us, looking down at the flashing shield domes with an eyebrow raised in question, “Is that still the drone?”

I nodded, “Yeah, you need us to remove the shielding or what?”

Zyno dropped his bag and knelt beside me, pulling out some weird sensor that looked like a toy ray gun.

“Let me get some preliminary readings first.” He said.

Even though it was only a few seconds, time seemed to drag on as we all watched Zyno work, waiting to see what he needed next.

He let out a weary sigh, then handed me a different kind of gun that looked like a mix between a drill and a syringe.

“Okay, this is going to suck, but I need you to get me a direct sample from the drone.” Zyno said, then pulled out a bulky tablet larger than the standard one he usually worked on, “Once you’ve got it, lock the syringe into the computer so it can scan and breakdown the genetic sequencing. Once that’s done, I’ll have a working Predazoan scanner in a matter of minutes.”

I nodded again, then looked to everyone around us, “Better give us some space, no telling how dangerous the drone remains still are.”

No one needed to be told twice as they all gave us significant room, except Bryx who stood beside Zyno with his carbine rifle trained on the dome.

“I’m ready when you are.” Bryx said.

I looked to Zyno and he nodded, then I took a deep breath as I deactivated the top repulser shield and lifted away the second.

I put as much force as I could into my enhanced speed to slow everything down to a crawl; I could see the drone-snake coiling back, preparing to lunge at me, but I moved faster, jabbing the syringe right into its head. It shrieked and tried to thrash away, but I held firm until I could see the syringe was filled.

I slammed the shield dome back down as I put the syringe into Zyno’s computer, and after a few chimes and beeps, he gave me the thumbs up it was all clear.

I let out a huge sigh of relief, and the moment I lifted the repulser shield for the second time, Bryx shot the little bastard with the carbine rifle, turning it into useless black ooze.

I nearly collapsed on the ground when it was over, “Holy shit...” I wheezed, catching my breath from pushing myself to my limits.

Gadow and the others rushed back towards us, “You got it—you can scan for the monster?”

Zyno was busy typing away on his device like a man possessed, but he nodded, “Yeah, just need to calibrate it.”

We all watched Zyno work with bated breath, waiting for the final reveal.

“Done.” He announced, and in one grand gesture, he pressed a button on his tablet to display the map of Jessipie-90.

Off in the storage sector of the vessel, there was one tank that was completely highlighted against everything else, right in the middle of thousands of others, seemingly like it must’ve been picked at random.

Gadow pulled out his own tablet, “That looks like...tank F.04-3558.”

I nodded along, “Alright, great, now we should just—”

Zyno held a hand up to stop me, “Wait, look at this.”

Zyno zoomed into the map of Jessipie-90 to show there were smaller highlighted sections all over the ship, sparce and random, but it seemed like there were collections of Predazoan biomass almost everywhere on the ship.

And they appeared to be moving.

“Those are drones, they’ve gotta be.” Roote said.

From Zyno’s sensor it looked like nowhere on the ship was safe.

Gadow gestured towards the lines, “Looks like they’ve infiltrated the ventilation system completely.”

I looked at him, “Will the command center still be safe?”

Gadow nodded, “With the emergency shielding active, sure.”

“Then we need to get there now and decide our next course of action.” Durgo growled, looking down at the map with obvious distaste, “And I’d suggest we do it quickly.”

***

We rushed back to the command center and Fierra allowed us inside, and the second the doors were closed behind us, Reim reactivated the shielding like she was slamming a door shut.

Before we did anything, Zyno got out his eye-scanner and rescanned everyone to make sure no one had been assimilated. Once everyone passed the test, we all settled in our chairs to discuss what we were going to do next.

“First, we need to know if you can purge the ventilation system.” Durgo asked.

Gadow nodded, “Of course, all deep space freighters are required to have purging capabilities in the event someone becomes infected by some dangerous contaminants.”

Bryx looked over at Durgo, “Purge the vents, then confront Gamma-20 in her tank?”

“Can’t we just purge the tank?” I asked.

Gadow shook his head, “Not as easily as the vents; there’s a multiple-failsafe protocol to activate the purge, and one of the fail safes is inside the tank itself.”

I sighed into a groan, “It’s never fucking easy.”

“Run us through the procedure.” Durgo ordered.

“First, you must initiate the purge protocol from outside the tank you want to purge—F.04-3558 in this case. At that point a 10-minute timer will start where you need to activate the other fail safes, and if you time out with any of them the whole process is aborted.” Gadow explained.

“Once the purge timer is active, Gadow and I have to confirm our security keys and authorize the purge.” Fierra added.

“While that’s all going on, someone needs to confirm the purge protocol from inside the tank. Then, once all those fail safes have been activated, you need to return outside the tank and confirm the purge from the original terminal.” Gadow finished.

I rubbed at my eyes in a frustrated gesture, “So in the end we need to confront Gamma-20 after all.”

Reim cocked her head to the side, “I thought that was always the plan?”

I sighed and shook my head, “Yeah, but that plan was established back when we had a lot more gear and some more crew members that would’ve been vital to the operation.” I opened my eyes and looked around the room, “With just us, it’s going to be insanely dangerous, damn near impossible.”

Willa shrugged, “Maybe we just rush in and purge the tank, forget trying to fight the Predazoan.”

Zyno shook his head, “A Predazoan would easily be able to break back into the ship—tear it apart if she wanted.”

Zemman looked horrified, “What kind of fucking monster is this?”

Bryx gestured to Gadow, “What defensive capabilities does Jessipie-90 posses? Do you have full-scale repulser shielding?”

Gadow nodded, “Naturally.” He said, then tapped his knuckles against the wall beside him, “What do you think’s keeping us safe now?”

Zyno tapped a finger against his thin, green lips, “If we purge the tank and then activate the shielding, we could totally lock her out in the vacuum of space; there’s no way she could get through a repulser barrier covering the entire ship.”

“What about all the little monsters in the air vents?” Lummy asked.

“We’d have to time it right, do both purges together, then activate the shielding.” Roote reasoned.

Zyno nodded along, “It would be a tight window, but honestly it’s our best chance to get out of this mess alive.”

Durgo grumbled so it caused his voice modulator to crackle, “We’re not even going to attempt to contain or kill the Predazoan target? Need I remind you all if we kill Gamma-20 all her drone forms die with her.”

Gadow cocked his head to the side, looking confused, “What the hell does that mean?”

I waved around vaguely, “They’re all connected through a hivemind; kill the core, kill them all.” I turned to Durgo, “Do you really think we’re in a position where we can do anything against a Predazoan? With our limited resources?”

“We could at least try.” Durgo nodded towards Gadow, “Gadow says we have a 10-minute window to activate the purge, maybe we take a few minutes to see if we can put a definitive end to the threat.”

Zyno shrugged, “That, or we choose to believe the void singularity will get her—complete the mission for us.”

“Yeah, hey, what the hell’s going on with that?” Lummy pressed, still waiting for her answer.

Gadow turned and looked like he was about to explain, but I cut him off quickly.

“That’s something you can get into once we’re out handling the Predazoan. For now, let’s stay focused on the target.” I insisted.

“We might as well try to kill Gamma-20 while we’re there; we’re going to be in the shit anyways trying to active the inner-tank failsafe, why not see if we can take her out.” Bryx reasoned, then patted his heavy carbine rifle, “We’ve got the tools for the job.”

I let out a long, weary sigh, “You really think we stand any kind of chance against her?”

Bryx shrugged, “Honestly, I’d say we stand as good of a chance killing her as we do flipping the switch inside the tank she’s protecting; might as well go out fighting rather than running around aimlessly.” He said.

Well, I guess I couldn’t fault him there. Who knows, maybe we could distract her enough someone would get a lucky shot off.

I looked around the room, “Alright, we’re in agreement on what we’re doing next? A small team will head over to the tank, activate the purge, head inside and try to kill her for, what, a couple minutes? And if we fail we’ll continue with the purge plan.” I waved over to Gadow, “And once the tank is purged, you guys will purge the ventilation system and then active Jessipie-90’s repulser shielding. That about sum it up?” I asked everyone.

The Jessipie-90 crew and my team all confirmed the plan, though no one looked thrilled about it—least of all those who were heading off on the suicide mission.

Bryx stood up boldly, holding his carbine rifle like it was a holy relic, “Alright everyone, let’s get to work.”