While the gear and supplies were getting packed away, there really wasn’t much for Eve and I to do, so we ended up wandering around the battlefield to look at the fallen assimilated soldiers.

  The researchers had the same idea, but they took it a step farther as they took samples from the corpses and performed a quick field analysis on their unique biology.

  I stood outside their little circle with Eve leaning against me, watching the researchers work and discuss their findings with fervent enthusiasm.

  “Discover anything interesting?” I asked mildly.

  The researchers didn’t even look at me to answer, still huddled around their tablets and little mobile lab-kit that looked like a strange black briefcase.

  “Well, they’re all certainly dead.” Kianna confirmed.

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “Like, now after we shot them or from before?”

  “A little of both, actually.” Gorgam added, peering over some hologram of alien DNA sequencing.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  Finally, someone looked at me as Ryo turned to show me some magnified picture of strange cells on his tablet, “See here, there’s actually a surprising amount of decay and cellular necrosis starting in most of their internal systems. Really the only fully healthy parts of their bodies left are the musculoskeletal structure and their skin—the latter probably maintained to continue to blend in.”

  Kianna nodded along, scrolling through info on her tablet, “Cardiac, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, pretty much every other system in their body is left to rot while the skeleton and muscles are strengthened.”

  I crossed my arms as I thought over their discoveries, “Just enough kept intact to work them as puppets, that it?”

  “Precisely.” Gorgam confirmed.

  I leaned over to look at the dead body they were experimenting on, some militia vyrane male who looked young, now blasted apart from laser fire. I could see on the outside his skin looked mostly intact, and while I knew nothing about vyrane biology, even I could see his internal organs looked withered and diseased. A black tentacle netting wrapped all around them, integrating into the surrounding muscles and bones like some sick marionette, but now all the tentacles looked half-melted, liquified in his body, almost like jelly.

  “So they’re well and long since dead.” I said.

  Kianna looked at me then, her studious expression turned sad, “Yes, I doubt there’s any way to save someone after they’ve been assimilated. Some of these bodies were assimilated after death, but I don’t think that’s a requirement for the Predazoan to take over.”

  Eve beside me nodded once, “It’s not; alive or dead, we can assimilate flesh all the same, though it’s even easier with dead bodies.”

  The researchers seemed both curious and unsettled by Eve’s confirmation, but no one wanted to press her for more information.

  I gestured to the gooey tentacles, “And we’re sure they’re completely disabled? No chance Beta-09 can still use this biomass?”

  Hennor had some gloves on and was sifting through the strange tentacle mass, “While it’s retaining its shape more than any other discarded or destabilized biomass, it appears to have been completely disconnected from its original source.” He looked around at his fellow researchers, “We should try to take some biothermal energy readings, see if there’s any kind of dormant processes remaining.”

  “If she wanted, Beta-09 could reactivate the biomass; it’s only been destabilized since the host body was destroyed, but as it still retains some of its form, the cells could be revitalized if they were reassimilated into her main body or biomass core.” Eve explained easily, as though everyone around her was rather simple-minded.

  “What exactly causes the cells to die off and disconnect from the main body once the host body is destroyed?” Gorgam asked, looking like he didn’t even have a guess as to what could explain the anomaly.

  Eve waved her hand vaguely towards the body, “This biomass has been completely integrated with the host body, keeping it alive and fueling its systems just enough to keep it moving with an internal chemical reaction I couldn’t even begin to explain to you all so you could understand. But once the host body has been too far damaged, the process of keeping the body and its systems active is disrupted, interrupting that process and causing that renewable energy cycle to stop, with no way to restart it unless the Predazoan was physically there to give it more energy, which could only happen once the biomass was reassimilated.” She clarified.

  Of course it didn’t seem to clarify much; I was well beyond lost to the point I wasn’t going to engage with the conversation far above what I could understand, and yet the researchers didn’t look like they were doing much better.

  They pelted Eve with a few more questions about the chemical process of renewable bioenergy and the way the biomass fused with the host body to keep the systems alive despite the advanced stages of decay, but she clearly wasn’t interested in entertaining their curiosity.

  “You’re the scientists, yes? I’m not about to sit here and feed you all the answers—not like you would understand them without a massive deep-dive into Predazoan biology, which of course you scarcely understand as it is. Figure it out for yourselves.” Eve said flippantly, then turned and walked off by herself, heading over to look amongst the rest of the corpses around us.

  I watched Eve walk around on her own, surprised she seemed so irritated with their questions—even more surprised she seemed to want some alone time now when she normally wanted to spend every waking moment next to me. I wondered what was going on in that brilliant mind of hers and if I should be concerned at all. However, I figured a little alone time might actually be healthy for us since we’d become so codependent.

  I turned back towards the researchers, “You guys, like, created the Predazoans, right? How do you still understand so little about them? Shouldn’t you have mapped out their cells and DNA and all that shit?”

  Gorgam shook his head slowly, “Not created, Adam, and even saying we cloned them could be considered a stretch. Really, we just revived them from those ancient dead remains we found in fringe space. Despite how difficult it was in revitalizing them and how many years it took, it honestly was mostly the Predazoan cells that revived themselves after we were finally able to kickstart the process with the right random combination of additional cells and bioenergy to wake them up.” He confirmed.

  I nodded along, “Right right, your little sparks gave birth to a flame that grew wildly out of your control, and now we’re on some random alien planet trying to free it from being completely overtaken by your miraculous mistake.” I said offhandedly.

  Gorgam’s expression turned grumpy at my flippant attitude, but before he could respond, Kianna stood up next to me.

  “Really I don’t think any of us had any idea what we were dealing with, not back then and certainly not now. And of course, being around Eve, we learn more and more just how little we understand about the Predazoans.” Kianna sighed and shook her head, “I know you’re upset with how everything’s turned out now, and I certainly don’t blame you, but even I can admit all this time we’ve been playing with forces way, way beyond our comprehension, forces we should’ve left well enough alone.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Kianna turned back to look at the other researchers, as though waiting to see if they would reject her claims, but none of them did. I’d talked to enough of the researchers on my own to learn what all motivated them and what they hoped to gain through the Predazoan research and cloning mission, and it was honestly crazy how many different ideas they all had, different things they believed the Predazoans would be able to do for the Empire. Some believed it would help with terraforming systems, others thought it would help advance medical science, some thought it would just be a great way to learn more about DNA and biology and even cloning, and others still thought it would lead to a great change in how ships could travel through warp space.

  Every single person seemed to have some different ideal they were striving towards, some specialized research they were working for. And yet it all stemmed around the Predazoans and their biology, the way they could change the universe by themselves—or already had changed it really.

  But now that we saw what all the Predazoans could do and how dangerous they were I saw for several their hubris finally caught up to them and they realized how badly they fucked up in meddling with the eldritch abomination biology, bringing to life near two dozen Outsider gods able to control, consume or destroy planets with ease.

  When I first joined on with the mission, everyone was so nervous around the child-like Eve who couldn’t even speak—or was pretending she couldn’t I guess, but still despite how cute and innocent she acted, everyone aboard The Radiance acted like she might destroy them all given the chance. But then she took on her adult form, and after threatening the entire ship and proving she could destroy them all so easily, their fears seemed to slowly diminish as she showed herself to be a regular person, acting like a normal girl most of the time. Crew members came to treat her more like a person rather than just an asset, slowly at first, and in time she seemed to even befriend most people—even if she insisted she only did so for my sake, to be more human.

  However, after getting bound by the Lord Generals, I noticed Eve stopped entertaining most of her old pleasantries around other people, no longer caring to show herself as a regular person, especially after we dropped on Vyrane. She didn’t exchange pleasantries with any of the soldiers—neither of us really talked to any of them much now. And when it came to the researchers, she talked over and above them easily, as though trying to prove her superiority more than anything.

  Sure, she still liked fucking around with Kianna, but that was for the sexual thrill with me more than anything, and even though she confirmed we should try to gather more allies who might help us get free from containment, anyone who seemed like they wouldn’t prove beneficial to us was quickly discarded or outright ignored.

  Something was going on with Eve now, but I wasn’t sure what it could really be. To me she was still behaving normally, if maybe a little more distant than before, but she seemed completely done with other people—no longer caring about being human for anyone else.

  I wondered if I should be concerned what kind of path this was leading us down, if it would turn into Eve abandoning her humanity in favor of being a pure Predazoan, or if this was just the result of venting out her frustrations at our current situation.

  For now, I felt everything was still fine and we were safe, so I’d give Eve the space she needed to work through her frustrations, ready to be there to help or support if she wanted.

  Almana, Gryme, and a couple of their soldiers made their way towards us, putting an immediate end to any discussion on the Predazoans.

  “Checking out what we’re up against?” Almana asked, a surprisingly bright smile on her face despite all the destruction around us.

  I hooked a thumb behind me towards the researchers, “The eggheads are doing some research, seeing what we can learn about the assimilation technology.”

  Almana looked around me towards the scientists, “Any breakthroughs?”

  Kianna shook her head, “We’ve never seen technology like this before, no idea what to really make of it.” She said dismissively.

  Almana turned back to me, “And with Eve and all her doomsday devices, she’s never seen anything like this either?”

  I shrugged, “Not to my knowledge; we don’t dabble much in biological weapons, so this is a little outside our wheelhouse.”

  Gryme walked forward to nudge the dead body with his boot, “I just wish we knew where it all started; why us, why our planet, for what purpose and to what end?” He pondered mostly to himself.

  Almana answered him regardless, “I don’t care what end the separatists are striving for, more concerned with just ending it.”

  I smiled and nodded, “That’s what we’re here for.”

  Almana smiled in response, “And we’re glad to have you.” She gestured to the surrounding area, “Can’t believe how easily we defended against such a force of assimilated soldiers; you people really are something else.”

  I shrugged, “You guys were fighting right there beside us; I’d say we’re all a force to be reckoned with.”

  Almana was beaming so bright it looked like she might burst, pride swelling up her chest, she planted her hands on her hips and stood up as tall as she could—still quite short before me of course.

  “You guys are amazing, and together, I really think we can put an end to this nightmare once and for all.” She said confidently.

  From there, the teams worked together to clear up the freeway, moving the dead bodies over to the side of the road and setting them all on fire after stripping them of any usable gear and weapons. It was tedious work, but considering how many of us there were, we got the road cleared up in no time at all.

  While we were working I kept an eye on Eve, watching her wander aimlessly, looking up and around at nothing at all, almost looking like she was having a conversation with herself at times. I couldn’t guess what she was thinking, and I wondered briefly if it would be better to inquire or leave her to her thoughts.

  In the end, I just couldn’t leave my Eve on her own, so I made my way over to make sure she was doing alright.

  “Hey Evie, are you doing okay?” I asked.

  Eve looked at me with her head cocked to the side, a curious look on her face, “I’m alright, why?”

  She seemed genuinely confused by my question.

  I waved around to the road around us, “You’ve been wandering around for a good 15 minutes now, we’re just about ready to ship out again.”

  Eve almost looked surprised so much changed without her, but she just smiled in that surprisingly girly way of hers, “Oh really, all those brutes finished with the menial labor?”

  I rolled my eyes at that, “You know I was one of those brutes, even helped out with the menial labor.”

  Eve’s smile fell a little, “Adam, darling, there was no reason for you to help; that kind of work is beneath you.”

  I shrugged, “No reason not to help.”

  Eve narrowed her gaze, “Really? No reason not to help the Empire?” She pulled at the neck of her armor to reveal the inhibitor field collar, “I can think of a few reasons.”

  I let out a weary sigh, “Eve, you know how much I hate the Empire too, but these people—”

  “Would kill us without hesitation, all for the sake of their precious Empire.” Eve interrupted, then leaned up to wrap her arms around my neck, leaning in close so her lips were just inches from mine, “I love you Adam, truly I do, but you need to realize with every victory we help the Empire achieve, that just furthers their goals to place ours even more out of reach.”

  I quirked an eyebrow up, “So what would you have us do? Sabotage every mission, every battle just to help destabilize the Empire any way we can?”

  Eve looked up in my eyes and held my gaze for several silent seconds, searching for something I didn’t know what. After a time, she just smiled and leaned up that last bit to kiss me.

  “I suppose that wouldn’t be prudent.” She confirmed, then leaned back down and pulled away from me, holding my hands in hers, “Just something to keep in mind.”

  There was a call from the transports, we were ready to head back on the road now and everyone was to get their asses in gear so we could get moving.

  Eve’s smile turned innocent once more, and she swung our arms around like she was being a playful teenager, “Come along then darling, let’s grab our seats and snuggle and make out to the point everyone around us gets uncomfortable.” She said breezily, skipping off towards the bus while dragging me along with her.

  I laughed at her antics and joined in with her, but there was a part of me that couldn’t shake what she said, and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t concern me a little.

  Obviously, I wanted to be free of the Empire, but while working for them there wasn’t much we could do except show ourselves compliant and hope they would eventually reward us with freedom, but was that a na?ve thought? Was it pointless or even hopeless to consider that a possibility? And then there was Eve, what was she really thinking? Did she actually want us to start sabotaging the missions, to do what little we could to help destabilize them? Honestly, what would that do except get a few random soldiers killed here and there.

  And then it hit me, that was probably fine with Eve; she didn’t care at all for the lives of other people, saw them all as insects far beneath her. Did she think we should start trying to get the soldiers around us killed—to eliminate as much of the Empire as we could, even if it was just one life at a time?

  I honestly couldn’t even begin to guess what Eve was thinking, and despite the victorious atmosphere on the bus with the other soldiers, I worried over what Eve might be planning, and I realized for the sake of our future—for the sake of keeping her human, I needed to keep a close eye on Eve and all her subtle machinations from now on.