I always had a busy mind with racing thoughts and a wildly active imagination. Right away I was thinking of everything that could go wrong with Eve in a mission debrief without me; what if she gave them too much attitude? What if she threatened them? What if she had some violent plan in her mind and was just waiting for this opportunity to unleash it, potentially killing hundreds of innocent crew members?

  I realized I was being foolish; Eve was insanely intelligent and there was no reason I shouldn’t trust her to handle a talk with the Lord Generals just fine.

  Actually, my trust in her was starting to waver a little, and it all started back on Vyrane. Forgetting a discussion with our commanders, her and I really needed to sit down and have a serious conversation.

  Thankfully, I didn’t have to stew in my thoughts alone for very long as an hour or so later my door opened once more and a few of my friends filtered in together.

  There was Doctor Zyno, my best bud out in the Empire, a classic green alien with wide black eyes and a couple dozen long tentacles on his head, Zyno’s girlfriend, Doctor Yun, a purple celicapoz, exotic and attractive, with dark purple tentacles for hair, Doctor Tillia, an incredibly beautiful red skinned revoran who looked like an alien super model, and I was surprised Doctor Wit came with them, the large, tall, shark-like alien with a rather menacing appearance that was somewhat disarmed thanks to the small dorky glasses he wore on his face.

  “Made it back in one piece, eh?” Zyno said with a smirk, pulling up a chair for himself and Yun beside my bed.

  “Welcome home.” Tillia said with a bright smile, putting a chair on the opposite side.

  “Where’s Eve?” Yun asked.

  I shrugged as everyone settled around me, with Wit standing on his own since the chairs seemed a bit small for him. “Called in for a debriefing with the Lord Generals.”

  Zyno seemed taken aback, “Really, without you—her handler?”

  “I dunno, they probably wanna see how she behaves without me.” I looked around at all the researchers, “Did you all read up on the threat assessment? The Lord Generals were literally weighing the options between keeping me as her handler or trying to control Eve on her own; this could be a power play for those kinds of analytics.”

  Tillia rolled her eyes, “They’ll be sorely mistaken if they think Eve would do anything without you.”

  “Shit, the whole mission would fail if they got rid of you; there’d be no way Eve would play nice for anyone else.” Zyno added.

  I couldn’t remember what all I’d told the researchers at that point; I was pretty sure before I went down on Vyrane I was playing things close to the chest, and Tillia was the only one who knew the full extent of Eve and my containment since we needed to explain things to her when Eve recovered some extra biomass she’d stored within Tillia’s body. As for everyone else, I knew I was open and honest with Zyno about the court martial and everything, but I don’t remember even having the opportunity to tell him about my failsafe bomb or the inhibitor field containing Eve.

  Damn, it really was hard to adjust from planet-side time back to space-time or even just standard Imperial time, plus the grueling mission felt like it lasted a lifetime. Not that I would really know, but this must be what soldiers feel when returning from war.

  I shut my eyes tight and pinched the bridge of my nose in a frustrated gesture, letting out an irritated sigh, “Sorry, just give me a second to remember where I left things off with you guys.”

  “Despite its convenience, traveling between planets and back out into space can be incredibly disorienting.” Wit’s voice said from the corner of the room.

  “Yeah, don’t try to rush the adjustment, just take your time with it—relax.” Tillia said beside me.

  I waved them off, but kept my eyes closed to help hold in my confusion, “Back on Earth we have this concept we call jetlag, it’s your body’s internal clock readjusting when you travel through time zones; you’ll be exhausted for a few days, feel like you should be awake or sleeping at different times. I thought that was disorienting, but this is something else entirely.” I opened my eyes and looked around at them, “It felt like I lived an entire lifetime down there, and now I’m back up on The Radiance dealing with the same old bullshit. Craziest thing is I was only down there for two Vyrane cycles, for you lot it wasn’t even that long running on Imperial time. I must look like a mess compared to the last time you saw me.”

  Tillia smiled, “Well you certainly weren’t injured last we saw you, so yes, there’s that.”

  Zyno shook his head, “Trust me man, we’ve all been there; take your time to adjust.” He gestured to the door, “We can leave if you just wanna rest.”

  I shook my head quickly, “No, without Eve here I’d just be going stir-crazy.” I smiled then, “I’d actually prefer the company.”

  “You want to hear what’s been going on aboard The Radiance and The Judicator? Or do you want to talk about your time on Vyrane?” Tillia asked.

  I pointed vaguely towards them, “You guys first; the Lord Generals were working on a restructuring last I remember; has that been all finalized?”

  The doctors exchanged a few glances, none of them entirely pleased.

  “Yeah, yeah that shit’s all been reworked.” Zyno confirmed.

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “Not good?”

  Yun shrugged, “You remember the grievances we submitted after the Holistia Nebula mission?”

  I nodded, “Yeah, you guys got a pay-bump and hazard pay and all that shit, right?”

  Zyno looked over at Yun, “I already told him about all that and those changes.”

  “Oh, right.” Yun said.

  Zyno looked back and me, “Well, either piggybacking off that or just for the sake of mission security, research teams have been completely compartmentalized in separate units, and the free exchange of relevant information has ended.”

  My eyebrows shot up, “What the hell does that mean? How can you do research without freely exchanging the information?”

  Tillia rolled her eyes, “They’re trying to establish these in-house thinktanks that are all hyper-focused on their specific subjects. You remember before how we could look up any research materials on the Predazoans, all the way back to their discovery and creation? Now, everything takes a separate clearance, and only project heads or unit directors have full access to the data.”

  “What? I thought you lot were all your department heads—isn’t that what someone said when you first beamed me up on The Radiance from Earth?” I pressed.

  “That was before The Judicator took over; they have all their own handpicked people calling the shots now, and all those people answer directly to the Lord Generals.” Wit explained.

  “They’re keeping everything tight in a closed loop of information, no chance for leaks or anything I guess.” Zyno added.

  “You think it’s all for security reasons?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Tillia shrugged, “That, or because researchers were complaining about getting moved onto projects that weren’t part of their specialties—part of the grievance maybe.”

  Yun shook her head, “No, I think the grievance thing was squashed with the pay increase; this seems like it’s all about security.”

  “Plus, with how mission operations and protocols have changed, it’s obvious that’s their main concern.” Zyno said.

  “What else has changed?” I asked.

  “For starters, military operations have been divided into two strictly separate camps.” Wit explained, holding up fingers and ticking them off, “First, our marines and soldiers are completely cut off from research materials and clandestine mission parameters; they’re nothing but living guns to be pointed at the enemy, following orders down to the letter. And second, the clandestine agents have access to all operational information for the purpose of secrecy and security; they’re even above the researchers now with information clearance levels.”

  “Whoa, seriously? They’re treating the soldiers as what, disposable bodies to throw at our problems without even giving them full access to the data on the enemy they’re supposed to be fighting?” I pressed, wondering if the soldiers and marines were now going to be considered as disposable as me with a fucking bomb in my neck—maybe even more disposable.

  Tillia shook her head, “Worse than that, it means the agents have access to all our files, including our personal correspondences. For half of them, their job is going to be internal security, spying on everyone else aboard The Radiance to make sure there aren’t any information leaks, while the other half will be working on keeping the Predazoan secret from spreading amongst Imperial citizens.” She explained.

  I held my hands up to slow them down, “Hang on, and you’re all okay with that?”

  Zyno made a scoffing noise, “Fuck no, but they got us locked in after the pay increase and renewing our contracts; if we breach now they have the legal authority to send us off to prison, at least until the mission has been declassified in a century after it’s been completed.”

  My eyes grew wide, “Seriously?”

  “And imagine I was originally complaining about being humiliated on a paradise vacation; compared to what we’re dealing with now, I’d head back to Hedonism-36 for a full year.” Yun said.

  Zyno looked over at her, “Not without me you aren’t.” He whispered—not very stealthily.

  Yun rolled her eyes and shoved him playfully but didn’t say anything else.

  I looked around at all the doctors, “So that’s the restructuring they were talking about? Sounds like they cut you off at the legs, all for the sake of overly cautious security purposes.”

  Tillia nodded, “You can say that again; research efforts have all come to a stand-still as no one has any idea how to start or resume their projects with all the extra Predazoan data blocked from us.”

  Zyno shrugged, “Not like research efforts have been very productive lately anyways; with only Eve and her scarcely donated cells to research, we really haven’t made much headway in most of our departments.”

  Yun snorted delicately, “Speak for yourself; just because you can’t crack through the magic of Predazoan camouflage doesn’t mean everyone else is just sitting around with nothing to work with; we’ve been making great strides in terraforming technology, and I’ve heard there’s been a breakthrough in the medical and cloning sciences even.”

  Wit smiled and wagged his large finger at Yun, “Remember, no discussing your projects with people who don’t have the proper clearance level.”

  Yun rolled her eyes, “What, are the agents going to break into me and Zyno’s room at night whenever we have a private conversation about our research?”

  Tillia smirked, “Sounds like wildly boring pillow talk.”

  My eyebrows shot up, “You two are already living together?”

  Yun blushed and looked away, meanwhile Zyno tried to hide his grin.

  “Not officially, but she stays over most nights.” Zyno offered, very obviously brimming with pride.

  Yun swatted him on the shoulder, but she looked rather pleased herself.

  Well, at least there was good news on that front; I was there on the front lines offering Zyno all the help I could in dealing with Yun while they were partnered together for the Holistia Nebula mission. Glad to see things were still working out for my boy.

  Tillia looked over at me, hiding a smirk, “Like you can talk; didn’t you room with Eve on day one?”

  I held a hand up to halt her wild accusations, “I don’t think we can use anything I’ve done as an example. Besides, when would we actually count her rooming with me?” I started ticking off fingers, “I brought her into my room on Earth in a fucking terrarium. Then she grew up in that child-form and slept at the foot of my bed. Then aboard The Radiance I stayed in her containment cell at first. Then she finally revealed her true form and said she’d be living with me in my quarters from that point on.” I quirked up an eyebrow and looked over at Tillia, “So which time are we talking about?”

  Tillia just rolled her eyes and shook her head, clearly amused by my quick recounting of my time with Eve.

  “So, anything else you need to hear about what happened aboard The Radiance, or can we hear about Vyrane now?” Zyno pressed.

  There probably were things I still needed to know about mission operations while I was planet-side, but I couldn’t bring anything to mind now, and even if I did, there was no telling if the drastically compartmentalized researchers would be able to tell me now.

  I waved over to Wit, “Pull up a chair Wit, it might end up as a long story.”

  Wit looked behind him at the chair that seemed too small for him, but decided to trust it anyways as he moved it over to sit beside Tillia.

  “Alright, where should I start?”

  ***

  I decided to start at the very beginning and told everyone about all the consequences of the court martial with the Lord Generals and our containment. Tillia was the only one who knew before, but after I unloaded everything back on Vyrane in front of all the soldiers, including clandestine agents and even a soldier captain and commander, I decided why even bother keeping it all hidden?

  I mean really, it might help us gain some more allies through sheer sympathy, but considering our main enemies in all this were the Lord Generals who fucking ordered the containment in the first place, what good was there in hiding this shit?

  Everyone was pretty much outraged right away, wondering why they hell they would want to diminish their most valuable asset’s power like that, and horrified they put a bomb in me—a regular citizen of the Empire they were supposedly working to protect. There were no justifications offered, nothing like what some of the agents (like Lobae or Vinnago) might say about threat mitigation, instead their own faith in the Lord Generals and the direction of this mission seemed to be shaken even further.

  From there I moved onto our time planet-side, and there really wasn’t anything I needed to keep from them at this point. I told them about the crash and Seash and his men executing the innocent Imperial soldiers. Right away, Tillia and Yun were horrified, although I was surprised Zyno and Wit weren’t as outraged; sure they thought it was horrible, but they thought the whole situation sucked and we were stuck with trying to keep the mission on track since an entire planet’s population was at risk.

  I then told them about meeting Almana and how things worked out with the vyranes, fighting alongside them against the assimilated soldiers. I spared no details there and told them about how frightening it could be, life on the line fighting against those creepy dead puppets. I told them about our time in the tunnels and even admitted I’d been genetically enhanced thanks to Eve’s manipulation—Tillia of course already knew, but she did a great job of acting like she was hearing it all for the first time, clearly keeping my secret all the while.

  From there I told them about our time in Sesamna and how tense that all was, but made sure to not tell them about how Eve raped me in a crazy act of dominance, making Almana watch and then torturing her. That was a problem I still needed to confront Eve on and wasn’t about to involve anyone else.

  Then I told them about moving through the rest of Sesamna and how brave all the vyranes were to lay down their lives to ensure we’d make it to the capital.

  And then of course I told them about our confrontation with Beta-09, telling them how obviously limited Eve was due to the inhibitor field and just how fucking stupid that was. The fact I had to get involved—how I got injured, was absolutely outrageous.

  If Eve had been able to fight full power, I probably just could’ve easily watched from the sidelines no problem, maybe even ride along in some armor bonded to Eve like when she fought Gamma-12. But this was all one big mess, all because the stupid Lord Generals were just so terrified of Eve.

  I probably killed a full hour telling the researchers my story, and I was getting pretty tired after everything.

  “Well yeah Adam, you’ve been up since your time in Sesamna, going through those sewers, then your fight in the capital, and now all this? How haven’t you passed out yet?” Zyno laughed.

  It dawned on me all that technically happened in one day, and I suddenly felt completely exhausted, “Holy shit.” I looked over at my friends, “You guys mind if—”

  My friends all got up from their chairs as one unit.

  “Seriously, get some sleep Adam.” Wit insisted.

  “Yeah, we can check back in on you tomorrow.” Yun added.

  Tillia took a second to return the chairs to the side of the room, then moved over to give me a quick, one-armed hug, “Just go on and rest, you absolutely deserve it.”

  The researchers filed out of the room one by one, with just Zyno hanging at the doorway.

  “Really though, you okay man? I mean the shit you went through…” He shook his head slowly.

  I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open then, “Sleep now, PTSD later.” I assured him.

  Zyno chuckled at my dark humor, “You okay being alone though? I don’t mind sticking around while you sleep.”

  I closed my eyes then and just lazily waved him off, “Go on git. See you in the mornin’.” I offered blearily.

  Zyno laughed again, then left me alone in the recovery room once again.

  Earlier I’d felt terribly alone after Eve left, but I was thankful now because I was simply too tired to feel anything; before I could feel much of anything, sleep overtook me, and I was so totally exhausted, I didn’t even have the energy to dream.