Eve was still worried, and while I agreed we weren’t completely clear yet, I thought it would be fine to head out into The Radiance once again so we could check on our friends. We decided to all meet up in the cafeteria for lunch, back to being reliant on food synthesizers for our meals. The artificial food wasn’t bad, but after being spoiled on the delicacies of the Holistia Nebula, it took a little bit of adjusting.

  Our group was me and Eve, with Zyno escorted by a caregiving Yun, with Kianna and Tillia joining back up with us. Right away Tillia wanted all the details of our time on the vacation stations, more interested in fun stories rather than anything related to the mission. We told her about the different stations and all the activities, the food, the atmosphere, and the new friends we made along the way. Tillia started digging towards an obvious agenda, clearly hearing more about Hedonism-36 from Kianna and wanting to hear our side of the story, but with as embarrassed as Yun still was over her behavior while drugged out of her mind on the atmospheric aphrodisiac, she shut that conversation down quick.

  I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture, “Forget the Holisitia mission for now, I’m sick of talking about it.” I nodded towards Tillia, “What did you do while we were away?”

  Tillia rolled her eyes, “Oh please, like anyone wants to hear such a boring story.”

  I shrugged so Eve had to readjust her head on my shoulder, flashing me a quick, pouty glare, “I’m just curious what all the researchers do while we’re out on a mission.”

  Tillia shook her head, “Nothing exciting, I assure you. We spent cycles analyzing Gamma-17’s remains but honestly have almost no progress to show for it.”

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “Why?”

  Tillia shrugged, “Once the Predazoan is destroyed, all the remaining biomass dissolves into useless goo. We tried reviving or revitalizing it, but there was nothing we could do to reactivate the dead Predazoan cells; once the core is destroyed and the hivemind is erased, all those cells rapidly breakdown as they lose the energy to maintain their form and structure.”

  “So you guys just spent endless days trying to revive the cells?” I asked.

  “That’s what my team was working on. There are other teams with their own projects, some that have been running since before NX-947b was destroyed even. But a huge part of our work is to analyze any findings the mission teams bring back from the field.” Tillia confirmed.

  “We all still have our own individual projects; a massive backlog of data awaits us when we return from a mission.” Zyno added.

  I turned back to Tillia, “And what do you make of the grievances made by the researchers on the mission team? Are you in agreement you should separate from military operations?”

  Tillia looked to her fellow researchers, then back to me, “To be honest Adam, there were a great many of us against the combining of the research and containment mission from the beginning, so this is just rehashing old complaints.”

  My eyebrows shot up, “Then you think they should be separate too?”

  Tillia shook her head, “Not really, I actually enjoy the fieldwork; my specialty was always focused more on gathering active data on live subjects, so this all fits in with that nicely.” She gestured to the doctors around us, “However, I definitely understand their point of view and completely agree Doctor Densdor’s death was avoidable, so I do think a restructuring is needed at this point.”

  I turned to the others, “How’s your grievance thing coming along then?”

  Zyno shrugged, “It’s as far along as it can get before we hear a response from high-command now.”

  Kianna nodded, “Everyone’s made their opinions known, we’ve got our petitions signed and organized, our research cells have been properly compartmentalized for future fieldwork, now we just need confirmation on the restructuring.”

  I gestured between them with my fingers, “So which of you guys would still want to do fieldwork?”

  Yun shook her head quickly, “I never wanted to get into fieldwork, that’s why I was so upset over the last mission; they could’ve chosen anyone else, but instead they sent me down there to suffer through the greatest humiliation in my career.”

  Zyno sighed, “Unfortunately due to my expertise I feel like out of anyone, command will never allow me to quit fieldwork, not unless someone else takes my place as the head researcher on Predazoan camouflage.”

  “I’m actually okay with fieldwork and enjoy talking to the Predazoans, to see how their personalities might’ve evolved—to see the people they are underneath the disguise. However, with my limited training I should never be on the front lines; I should only get involved once the danger has been properly resolved.” Kianna said.

  Eve snorted at that, “Well that won’t ever happen when dealing with the Predazoans.”

  “And what do the agents and soldiers think of all these grievances? We had a debriefing and were surprised there were no researchers present, like they’ve already started a restructuring.” I asked.

  Zyno shrugged, “Without an active investigation we’re free to separate ourselves for now until high-command gets involved, so we haven’t really been dealing with any military operations at all.”

  “We’ve been in and out of meetings ever since we returned from the mission; it’s been incredibly busy on our side of things.” Kianna told me.

  “We also had a funeral for Doctor Densdor, of course that eventually devolved into a huge debate on how we should restructure the research teams.” Tillia added.

  I let out a quick sigh, “Sounds like everyone’s playing the waiting game.”

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  Kianna cocked her head to the side, “Any update on your end? How’d the debriefing go?”

  I shrugged, “It was better than I’d feared, but still not great; they kind of tried to blame us for the destruction of Leisure-53 but also admitted how vital we were for the mission. They talked about us undergoing some additional training, and did mention we shouldn’t be so reckless, but they didn’t mention anything about Eve and I being in a relationship.” I explained.

  Tillia gestured between us, “So it’s true, you guys are officially together?”

  I looked over to Eve who had her legs draped over my lap, leaning her head on my shoulders, wondering how we ever thought we could keep our relationship a secret, “Yeah, everything you’ve heard is probably true.”

  Tillia smirked and flashed a quick look to Kianna who blushed and looked away, “Everything?” She asked.

  I smiled too, “Probably.” I said, then gave Eve a little squeeze, and she giggled in response.

  Zyno sighed, “Not like you two did anything to really keep it secret.”

  Eve turned to glare at Zyno, “And why should we ever need to? Adam was always the one who was concerned with keeping the secret and following the rules; I wanted to be free and open with our relationship from the very beginning.”

  Kianna shook her head, “Which was a nice thought, but remember what we talked about, the potential consequences from command when it’s all out in the open.”

  I shrugged, “Seems it’s as open as it’s going to get at this point, but command didn’t mention anything about it in the debriefing. I’m hoping it’ll be a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ kind of thing.”

  Eve shook her head, “I don’t think it’s the last we’ve heard on the subject, and I expect to find trouble before too long, but I’m done hiding what I feel for you and I’m willing to fight the entire Empire to protect it.” She confirmed.

  Kianna smiled awkwardly, “Maybe don’t start the conversation with threats of violence though?” She reasoned, and the other researchers laughed, causing Eve to cross her arms in an angry huff.

  We enjoyed the rest of our lunch exchanging news and pleasantries, and once it was done Eve and I headed back to our quarters where we planned to continue keeping a low profile—keep our heads down and weather out the storm.

  Everyone kept talking about a restructuring, but I honestly had no idea what that would ever look like. I was just a simple human from Earth, always distrusting the American government to the point I had next to no involvement with them; to even guess what an intergalactic Empire might do to manage a super-secret clandestine mission was way beyond me.

  I was a little worried all my researcher friends would end up leaving The Radiance to go work on satellite sites, and that would certainly be an unwelcome change. Of course there were even larger concerns weighing on my mind, like if high-command would try and end my relationship with Eve somehow—tell us we couldn’t date or something. It would never work of course, so from there I would have no idea how they would handle things.

  The next few days passed in a blur of vague anxieties; Eve and I relaxed all we could, flirty and playful as always, but there was a tension in the air caused by our uncertain future that was endless and oppressive. We met up for lunch with our friends when we could, hoping to gather any additional information—anything to help, but there wasn’t much else the researchers could offer us at this point.

  I eventually even reached out to Lobae and Vinnago, wanting to see if they would be interested in a casual meet-up, but my messages went unanswered, which only caused my concerns to grow.

  Finally an announcement rang throughout The Radiance so we learned where we were heading; we would be meeting up with an Imperial Command Station, The Judicator, which held the members of high-command, the leaders of the Predazoan containment mission—the people who made all the major decisions, the ones who read the reports and treated us all as mere names and numbers.

  I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was nervous over the idea of meeting high-command; I was always one to keep my head down, do my work and go home. I always believed it was better if management didn’t even know your name; I figured it was a bad thing when you were on a first-name basis with your supervisors, better to be unknown and forgotten, that way when any problems occurred they wouldn’t even be able to recall your name if they wanted to blame you. Being the handler of the one and only Predazoan asset to the mission, that was obviously impossible now.

  Eve seemed to be handling the anxiety a little differently, suddenly ramping up her affections, spoiling and doting on me like crazy. Of course, I loved the affection and attention, but it almost made me more nervous, wondering if she was keeping something from me—like she knew things were going to turn sour soon. She assured me that wasn’t the case, then set to redouble her efforts to make me forget all my troubles.

  Unfortunately, the troubles still arrived all the same, and after about five days travelling through void space we finally reentered our normal dimension on the approach to dock with The Judicator.

  Eve and I looked out the viewport so we could see the high-command space station, and if I thought The Radiance was massive, this station was on a completely different level. It still seemed to be a stealth vessel like The Radiance, nearly invisible out in the blackness of space, but I could just see enough to make out its shape. There was one giant sphere in the center that was straight-up like the Death Star, surrounded on all sides by four large, long, diamond-shaped shells that ran up and down around the sphere at least three times its length. There was also a large ring in the center of the sphere, rotating the four shielding shells slowly around the station. We could also see other large stealth vessels or stations docked against the outer shells, spinning around with them in their own kind of orbit.

  From what all I knew of The Judicator, it oversaw all the major clandestine missions in the Tritentarian Empire—more than just the Predazoan containment mission. Of course, we were all compartmentalized and had no information on any of the other missions, but it made me curious how our mission compared with the others; was ours more important, more dangerous maybe? Did other missions have teams of researchers working alongside the agents? Did we receive more or less funding than other missions—were there more or less people involved? These were just random thoughts that floated through my mind as we waited for our upcoming restructuring.

  And waiting was all we could do that first day; once we were docked on The Judicator, announcements rang through The Radiance constantly, calling for various teams to report for an endless string of meetings. We lost contact with all our friends as they boarded The Judicator and seemed to be sucked into a storm of bureaucracy. I wanted to head out and see if I could grab anyone to find out what all was going on, but Eve pulled me back inside and told me it would be best for us to wait it out, keep our heads down as usual.

  An entire standard Imperial day passed before any news reached us, and all we got was a quick message from Zyno apologizing for being so busy—with no additional information provided.

  I found myself growing hopeful as I started to think high-command was so preoccupied dealing with the researchers’ grievances, we might get to squeak through unnoticed after all.

  Of course, things rarely worked out for me so well.

  Early the next day, I went to answer the chime at our door to discover six dozen power armor soldiers in the hallways accompanying a man dressed in an Imperial officer’s uniform. The officer held up a tablet to project a hologram that had my and Eve’s faces alongside some slow-scrolling text—a list of offenses.

  “Specialty Resource Agent Adam Samson, you are hereby being court martialed to appear before Imperial High-Command of Clandestine Affairs to answer for dereliction of duty.” The rigid red alien took a step back, and a couple power armor soldiers pushed two mobile containment cells to the side of my door, “You and Predazoan Asset Alpha-03 are to be escorted to The Judicator for court proceedings to begin immediately.”