At least the second time I woke up, I was in a surprisingly comfortable bed. I looked around me and saw what appeared to be a futuristic hospital room—all rounded chrome, holographic displays and digital interfaces built into the walls. I looked over to see a creature in a black and white lab coat walking towards me.

  “Ah, good, awake already; your species is remarkably resilient.” The alien said. This one was very amphibian, looking like a squat frog standing on two stubby legs, with longer arms that started off thick but grew quite thin and ended in hands with two fingers and a thumb, and those bulbous finger pads like earth frogs have. The alien’s skin was red and green with a little blue thrown in. Its face was very frog-like with large orange eyes on top of its head, with a very wide mouth that took up most of its face, and while it was turned downward, it somehow didn’t look like a frown. “No, don’t get up—relax with me for a moment.” It insisted, then sighed, “Sorry for all the shady shadow government nonsense, but our entire operation is on a very delicate need to know basis—secrecy is of the utmost importance.”

  I shook my head and rubbed at my eyes, “We still on The Radiance?”

  The frog alien beamed at me, “Why yes, glad to hear you remembered the name.” It gestured to itself, “My name is Doctor Gorgam, one of the head researchers in charge of the project that has brought us aboard The Radiance to clean up after that mess.”

  I quirked an eyebrow, “For Eve?”

  Doctor Gorgam’s expression turned grave, and he nodded slowly, “Yes. Designation Alpha-03, the organism you call Eve was created in a specialized research facility—along with several others—who all escaped around 20 cycles ago. We have been attempting to track down the lost subjects with very little success.”

  I fixed him with a flat look, willing authority into my gaze, “I’d like to hear the whole story; I think I deserve that much.”

  Doctor Gorgam’s face was stoic, but he nodded again once, “Agreed.” He held up a single finger, “Firstly, what do you know of your Cthulhu mythos back on earth?”

  My eyes grew wide in surprise, “You’re telling me Eve is some kind of Lovecraftian horror!?”

  The alien doctor waved me off quickly, “Not quite, but I wonder if it would surprise you to hear such legends exist all across the known universe; numerous species and civilizations separated by vast distance and time have created similar legends of Great Old Ones, Ancients, Celestials, Outsiders, Beyonders—the myths go on and on.”

  “Meaning there’s some truth to them?”

  Doctor Gorgam smiled, “Precisely. We are not exactly sure what all these beings might have been, but we believe there must have been some ancient, powerful races that existed before or beyond our universe.” He steepled his hands together, “Speaking of legends, creation myths vary greatly across the cosmos, but while their stories differ, there is almost always a beginning and an end—even the Expansive Universe Theory which is rooted purely in science over theology states the universe constantly expands, explodes, contracts, and implodes in an endless cycle of energy that leads to a new universe taking place over the last. The theory would stand to reason those Beyonder beings must exist outside the universe’s normal expansion, the only beings to survive from one universe to the next.” He clarified.

  “So Eve is one of those Great Old Ones.”

  Doctor Gorgam wiggled his hand in a weighing gesture, “Not quite—not technically. A few hundred of your earth years ago, the remains of an ancient, extinct race were discovered on an asteroid in deep, deep space, and we believe those remains are the only proof in the universe of the existence of the Outsiders—a species we have come to call the Predazoans. Since their discovery, our research coalition attempted to revive the Predazoans without success; the DNA extracted from the asteroid was far too damaged to complete any full genetic sequences. Attempting to replicate the Predazoans, we had to splice the base genetic material with DNA from countless other species—”

  “Holy shit, you Jurassic Park’d it, didn’t you?” I blurted out.

  Doctor Gorgam cocked his head to the side, “I’m sorry, what? Is that an earth idiom?”

  I waved my hand out vaguely, “‘Life, uh, finds a way…’” I said in a horrible Jeff Goldblum impression.

  The alien doctor clearly didn’t get it. I shook my head quickly, “You cloned the Prednazoans, made them even more dangerous with the spliced DNA, then they escaped and have been causing all sorts of mayhem—that about it? You fucked up, big time.” I said without preamble.

  Doctor Gorgam let out a heavy sigh, “In so many words, yes, we fucked up.” He looked up in my eyes, guilt and determination fighting to take hold of his gaze, “The Predazoan DNA was like nothing we’d ever seen before—even incomplete, more complex than anything in our records. The Predazoans are such different creatures, able to manipulate their cellular structure the way we might manipulate our fingers. Not only that, but any outside DNA we added into the core of the Predazoan DNA was assimilated and somehow improved in a nearly automatic process. It all started with mere gene manipulation, but once we found our success, the progress nearly ran away from us as we moved onto single cell organisms. Moving beyond that proved difficult, and we hit a bit of a snag for several of your earth decades, but a few years ago we made our first major breakthrough by creating the first complex organism; the Predazoan Prime-00. From there we were able to clone off our success, making minor adjustments and improvements, moving through the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma generations—21 total cloned Predazoan creations.”

  I rolled my hand through the air, “Obviously it all eventually goes to shit, so what was your actual end-goal with all this cloning nonsense?”

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “We were trying to create the perfect lifeform, with such complex, sophisticated DNA it would shame the current apex of evolution—and I believe we succeeded.” He said seriously.

  I just laughed at that, “And to what end, dude? Were they just going to stay in a museum—a zoo? Come see the perfect lifeform, only $12!” I shook my head slowly as my laughs died away, “No, this was some diabolical military shit, wasn’t it? The perfect lifeform used as the perfect weapon.”

  Doctor Gorgam bristled a little, “Military applications was one possible venue, obviously, but they were so much more than that. They could synthesize any toxin or medicine in their blood—a cure for literally any disease without a production line. They were hyper intelligent like an organic supercomputer, able to solve problems in a matter of minutes what might take us centuries. It was even theorized they could interact with their environment to the point they might be able to terraform planets. Now I’d think that’s something a human knows little about, but suffice to say terraforming is a long, expensive process that takes incredibly precise equipment several decades before the planet becomes habitable.” He let out a quick sigh and relaxed his anger, “Yes, they could be used as weapons, but I don’t think you understand when I say they are perfect lifeforms, I really mean it, and such perfection has near limitless applications.”

  I crossed my arms and settled myself down into the bed more, “So how did it all end Doc? You poked and prodded, hoping they’d never escape, but oops, they escaped.”

  “Perfect lifeforms they may be, I’ll not deny they’re wildly dangerous and were nearly impossible to control; they could exploit any opening or weakness, fought against their creators constantly. Originally, they were aboard a space station, but they nearly destroyed it, and since they can survive the vacuum of space it was deemed a possible escape opportunity for them. They were then brought to an abandoned planetoid to contain them to continue the research, but even that proved useless in the end.”

  “What, they board a ship to escape the planet?” I reasoned.

  The alien doctor shook his head, “No, they destroyed it, flung themselves into space afterwards and split off all in separate directions.”

  My eyes grew wide, “They blew up a planet!?”

  “A small one—a planetoid, yes. We still don’t fully understand how, but they worked together to create some biothermal chain reaction that destabilized the planetoid’s core, and once the crust crumbled away, they were able to somehow get free of the gravity well, and as impossible as it would seem, they were able to open warp channels and escaped through void space, letting them travel to every far corner of the universe you could imagine.” Doctor Gorgam nearly rambled.

  I was suddenly dizzy again; I knew Eve was dangerous, killing and devouring those government agents like it was nothing, but now I’m to hear she had the capacity to destroy a planet. I closed my eyes tight and shook my head slowly, suddenly feeling so very tired, “You people are so fucking stupid…”

  “Thank you for your expert opinion.” The alien doctor snapped, then sighed to release his anger, “You must understand we never intended to release them upon the universe at large; every attempt was made to contain them, thousands died during the project, but the work was deemed important enough it was worth the sacrifice.”

  I snorted, “I’m so sure.”

  Doctor Gorgam sighed again, “What’s done is done, now we move on to recapture, contain, and if need be, destroy them.”

  I looked up at the alien doctor, “Can you destroy them?”

  He nodded, “We developed a destabilizing acid that can destroy the Predazoan cellular structure—the only way to kill them. Problem is, the Predazoans are smart, with the ability to assimilate any existing biomass and repurpose it; they can change their form to fit in with any population. And their camouflage is so perfect, there’s no scan or senser we possess that can detect them.”

  “Wait, then why was Eve so alien looking when I first found her? She never properly assimilated—never camouflaged right.”

  “When they destroyed the planetoid and during their escape, they all burned and lost most of their biomass, leaving them momentarily vulnerable. Once they crashed on a planet, all they would need to do to develop the ability to blend in with the local population would be to consume a certain amount of biomass so they could alter their appearances—eat enough people or animals so they could take their shape.”

  I shivered at that; Eve had eaten plenty of humans, so she’d be able to look like one fully now, “So they have a small window of vulnerability when they first crash on a planet, then they’re in the wind?”

  Doctor Gorgam nodded gravely, “Essentially. After the destruction of the planetoid, we repurposed nearly all our long-range scanners to try and lock onto the Predazoans when they emerged from void space. We were able to ping just under half of them, and we came to Alpha-03 first since she was the only Alpha we were able to get a fix on.”

  “I assume the Alphas must be more dangerous?”

  He nodded again, “Indeed. The Prime is the most dangerous as the Predazoan source, but the Alphas are right below her due to their near unlimited potential for assimilating and repurposing biomass. The Betas and Gammas were designed to be much more controlled, making them a lower priority overall.”

  “And the only one you actually found was Eve? Why didn’t you send a ship after all the pings or whatever so you could grab them all before they were able to blend into the new host planet?” I asked.

  At that, he just chuckled, “Mr. Samson, I had thought you, a clever man, would understand this isn’t the kind of operation that can go around blockading a dozen planets in Imperial space. The Radiance is the only vessel involved in this mission, and it’s likely to stay that way.”

  Realization suddenly dawned on me, “This is one of those hush hush, sweep under the rug type missions, right? Need to know, need to know type shit.”

  He smiled kindly, “Very need to know. We are operating in the darkest corner of the deepest shadow in the most secure building in the most hidden planet in the entire Empire at this point, and it needs to stay that way—both with our operations, and with regards to ensuring the existence of the Predazoans isn’t revealed to our Imperial Citizens.”

  As a human from a country with probably the shadiest government ever, boy did that sound familiar. But then I felt a swelling of dread squeeze my chest as I remembered my initial fear of the American government ghosting me away, and here I was aboard a clandestine alien vessel whose entire mission was cover-up. “What are you planning on doing with me?”

  Doctor Gorgam saw my train of thought and quickly waved his hands out to dismiss it, “Oh my boy, don’t worry, you’re quite safe—worst case scenario, we’d perform a brief memory wipe and send you back to earth. However, we have rather high hopes for you, and we’d very much like if you’d listen to our request.”

  The relief I felt was brief, knowing there was probably a carrot dangling before my face with a stick hidden somewhere outside my vision. “What’s the request?”

  Doctor Gorgam smiled—it looked odd from a frog alien without teeth, but I understood the gesture, “We would ask you, Mr. Samson, if you would join our mission in hunting down the other Predazoans—working together with Alpha-03, as her handler.”