A blissful cycle passed in the blink of an eye; over far too soon, my vacation with Eve sadly had to come to an end as mission command called a briefing to discuss our next Predazoan target.

  We were on our way to the briefing—or would’ve been, but someone made a flirtatious joke, and as those things go one thing led to another, and we ended up fucking twice in quick succession.

  Running down the halls to not be late for the meeting, I threw a glare at Eve, “We absolutely did not have time to go that second round.”

  Eve just rolled her eyes, “Darling, you started it, don’t you remember?”

  “Wha—me? You’re the one who said you wish you could wear my hands all over your body instead of clothes!”

  Eve trilled a little giggle, “After you grabbed my ass—with both hands!”

  Oh shit, she was right.

  “Really cradled that thing—like you were kneading dough. Honestly, as if you weren’t trying to get me going.” Eve scoffed.

  “Okay, but we didn’t need to go two rounds in a row!” I protested.

  Eve shrugged, unconcerned, “You were still hard; as far as I’m concerned that was just one extended round.”

  We arrived just in time to see Zyno make his way into the briefing room—shit, we really were late if even he beat us. Eve and I quickly calmed down and I put on my professional mask while she looked like the starry-eyed schoolgirl who was trying—and failing to capture the attention of her teacher. We headed up to the top row to sit next to Zyno and Tillia as usual.

  Tilla next to Eve offered us a teasing smirk, “Why so late, lovebirds?”

  Before we could respond, Commander Durgo activated a hologram in the center of the room, displaying the map of a strangely chaotic solar system. Apparently, it must’ve been a well-known system as hushed conversation spread through the audience. “Yes, our next target has been confirmed to be hidden somewhere in the Holistia Nebula.” He confirmed, and that only further riled up the audience.

  “What’s the deal with this nebula?” I asked Zyno beside me.

  Zyno gestured to the hologram, “The Holistia Nebula is a massive cloud of ultra-luminescent gas encasing an entire system of fledgling stars and gas giants. There isn’t a single habitable planet in the system, but it’s such beautiful scenery, it’s become one of the most famous vacation zones in the Tritentarian Empire.”

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “How can people vacation there if there aren’t any habitable worlds?” I pressed.

  Tillia leaned forward, “There’s a collection of space stations that orbit around the nebula, some that can hold thousands of people, and a few large enough for millions. There’s one central command station that manages and operates everything within the system, and that one’s the size of a planetoid.”

  My eyebrows shot up, “They can make structures that large?”

  “Unfortunately.” Doctor Gorgam started, trying to cut in over the chatter, “There’s almost no way for us to narrow down where in the nebula our target might be.” He clicked on his console, and the hologram zoomed out and a hundred highlighted orbs appeared around the nebula—the vacation space stations, “Gamma-12 was confirmed to enter the system around the same time the other Predazoans started appearing on our scanners, but disappeared soon after. Considering there’s no habitable worlds to host any wildlife, Gamma-12 must’ve somehow boarded one of the space stations to establish camouflage and disappear from our sensors.”

  “Have there been any missing person reports?” An agent in the front row asked.

  Captain Seash shook his head, “No, and regardless how many people end up disappearing, you can imagine Glorva Corporation will do everything in their power to keep any news of trouble from ever leaving the sector—even we haven’t been able to pick up that kind of chatter.”

  “Glorva Corporation?” I repeated.

  “The company that runs the system—like a vacation conglomerate, they own the entire nebula and all the rights to the space and everything.” Tillia offered.

  I rolled my eyes, “Sounds like an evil version of Disney—or I guess just Disney.”

  Finally able to understand most of my earthling references, Eve giggled beside me.

  Commander Durgo leaned forward, “This is going to be a very delicate mission.” The hologram changed to show details on a space station, “There are hundreds of stations for us to investigate, and once we find Gamma-12 an open confrontation with her would be incredibly dangerous.”

  Eve scoffed, “Dangerous for her maybe.” She offered boldly.

  “Dangerous for anyone aboard the space station at the time of confrontation.” Commander Durgo snapped, causing his voice modulator to hiss. The hologram showed various structural weak points on the station, and when red damage markings appeared on them the entire station broke apart and exploded, “These are not military-grade stations; the entire point is to be able to see the scenery—the nebula and everything within it. There are open areas on some of the stations with just a forcefield separating citizens from the vacuum of space. A Predazoan has more than enough strength to destroy any one of these stations with relative ease, leading to instant death for everyone else on board.”

  “How can we confront the Predazoan at all if she can just destroy the station and then flee into the vacuum of space?” A researcher asked.

  “We can’t confront Gamma-12 in the same way we confronted Gamma-17.” Doctor Kianna confirmed, “Instead, we’ll need a small infiltration team to locate the Predazoan and investigate what they’re doing there; what are they planning, why did they choose this system, are they a threat to the passengers, are they just trying to blend in. This time around, discovering the Predazoan’s motivation and behavioral pattern is more important than confronting and containing.”

  “And if they are a threat?” Someone asked.

  Doctor Gorgam shook his head, “We still can’t risk an open confrontation in one of the stations, but we’ll do what we can aboard The Radiance to try and contain them.”

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  “We could try and establish a gravity-net, or a localized repulser field, if we get really lucky and find an area on the station that doesn’t have tractor shielding, we might be able to beam her aboard The Radiance directly.” Captain Seash offered.

  Scattered talk broke out through the audience again; no one seemed thrilled with such a loose plan of action—a bunch of maybes to work with. Of course, I knew more than anyone there wasn’t exactly a manual when dealing with the Predazoans.

  “We’re going to be running a much smaller infiltration team this time around. As you all well know Glorva Corp is known for their reportedly flawless track-record of preventing stowaways, meaning the mission team is going to have to head into the system the old-fashioned way.” Captain Seash added.

  “What, like buy a ticket and be welcomed aboard as a guest?” A marine asked, getting a few laughs from around the room.

  “That’s precisely what we’ll have to do.” Commander Durgo confirmed.

  Doctor Wit nodded, “We’re going to be running with just 12 people this time, six pairs of people disguised as vacationing couples.”

  Eve flashed me a quick look, and both of us did everything we could to keep from looking like a pair of grinning idiots.

  Doctor Goram cleared his throat, looking down at his console to read, “The pairs are as follows; myself as research team lead and Doctor Sorra, Agent Roote as infiltration team lead and Agent Uinda. Doctor Yun with Doctor Zyno, Doctor Kianna with Doctor Densdor, Agent Vinnago with Agent Lobae, and Agent Adam with Specialty Resource Asset Eve.”

  “We’ll be taking the next cycle to establish your cover and backstories before we ship you out to the Holistia Nebula. Resources will be limited and regular communication with The Radiance will be imperative.” Commander Durgo growled, his gaze harsh, “This will not be a vacation.”

  For some reason it felt like he was singling me out—or maybe it was my imagination.

  “There isn’t going to be any security teams escorting us? No marines or power armor soldiers?” Zyno asked.

  Captain Seash shook his head, “Not only would it be foolish to bring the soldiers on board when we’re going to do everything in our power to prevent an open confrontation with Gamma-12, but we’re not going to be able to bring hardly any military supplies with us, Glorva Corp’s scanners are too sophisticated to sneak in any heavy weaponry.”

  Shit, that meant Eve was our only line of defense against Gamma-12; hopefully we actually could avoid a violent altercation.

  Despite Zyno’s concerns, Eve beside me seemed just about giddy with excitement; she was bouncing her legs underneath the table, barely able to keep from dancing at this point. Tillia beside her definitely noticed, but she seemed to find it amusing.

  “Once our covers are established, we’ll travel through void space and keep The Radiance just outside the nebula, then shuttle in the infiltration team to Glorva Corp’s primary station, Luxury-1. Since they own and maintain their space diligently, we won’t be able to do any emergency pickups unlike your time on Entana. Regular communication with mission command shouldn’t be impeded, and once you confirm Gamma-12’s location, The Radiance will need to enter the system, but we’ll have a very limited window, so we won’t want to move until we have the tactical advantage. This means we’ll need enough time to complete a primary behavioral analysis on Gamma-12 to see why she’s there, see if she’s a threat, and see if we can get her isolated and in an ideal location for a clean, immediate removal.” Doctor Gorgam explained.

  “Adaptability is vital in this mission, but we also need absolute precision; we might only get one chance at an abduction, and if we fail not only could we lose that window and need to immediately flee the sector, but it could well cause the deaths of everyone on the space station—including yours on the investigation team.” Commander Durgo confirmed.

  From there the meeting devolved into a debriefing on additional information regarding the Holistia Nebula and Glorva Corporation. Apparently the Holistia system was controlled by a mining company several thousand years ago, but the gas giants didn’t have enough valuable resources to justify the cost, so the company decided to abandon the entire system and sell the rights to the sector on the cheap to recover the significant profit losses. At the time Glorva Corp was much smaller and only owned a few terraformed planetoids around the Empire but were looking to expand into larger networks. Considering terraforming gas giants is almost impossible, no one knew what all Glorva Corp was planning at the time, but in just a few decades they completed their first generation of space stations, and with an aggressive advertising campaign focused on how beautiful the view was in the nebula they started breaking profit records within a matter of years. Since then, Glorva Corp has expanded their network in the Holistia Nebula to contain hundreds of space stations, thousands of tours around the system, and millions of scenic viewpoints. With their increased influence and wealth, Glorva Crop maintains the system with the strictest security measures, making it nearly impossible to stowaway on any of the stations, and preventing pirates or slavers from even thinking about running through the system. Which of course will make our mission incredibly difficult; instead of just pretending to be tourists like on Entana we’ll have to actually register as tourists—passengers aboard a vacation station tour, moving through the system along the schedule of whatever tour package we end up booking. It will limit our investigation significantly—won’t be able to just travel around freely, but there’s honestly very little we can do to circumvent Glorva Corp’s ironclad security.

  But while the mission itself sounds delicate and difficult, I couldn’t help but feel wildly excited over the idea of taking, basically, a real vacation with Eve. Every Glorva station sounded like a miniature paradise, each unique in what all they offered; we would be waited on by server bots, provided every creature comfort we could dream of, have any rare or exotic delicacy available, events and activities changing from one station to the next, and of course the scenery would be beautiful no matter where we’d be in the system. Despite Commander Durgo’s warning how Gamma-12 would be able to easily destroy a Glorva station due to significant structural weak points available to give the passengers those beautiful views, the stations by themselves were all incredibly safe, and never in history has a Glorva Corp station ever been destroyed.

  Of course, with two Predazoans on board, we’d see if that record would still last.

  We were going to be treated like kings and queens and considering the fanciest vacation I ever took back on Earth was a road trip to the Grand Canyon where we camped in a nice cabin, I was incredibly excited to experience this kind of luxury. More than that, I was so happy I’d get to enjoy all this with Eve—couldn’t imagine doing this without Eve actually.

  Really, I couldn’t imagine doing anything without Eve now.

  Eve leaned in closer to me, grabbing my hand and interlocking our fingers, “We’ll always be together, Adam; you don’t need to wonder or worry what life would be like without me.” She whispered.

  Eve had a playful smile on her face when I turned to glare at her, “Can you stop reading my mind?”

  Eve smiled brilliantly and shook her head, “Never; I love your mind and everything in it. It shines to me like a wonderful warm light—makes me feel safe and loved.”

  Well, when she put it like that, I guess it was okay.

  I let out a sigh and shook my head slowly, “You know you’ve ruined me, right? I’m like putty in your hands.” I admitted.

  Eve rolled her eyes, “Please, like you don’t know how much you actually control me now—how bound I am to your will.”

  I could see Tillia trying not to look obvious, but she was trying to listen in on Eve and my conversation. I was sure her interests were benign—she seemed to find us cute together—but I wasn’t sure who all else would be paying attention to us during the meeting. I pulled my hand away from Eve’s, trying to make a face like I was annoyed, and Eve made a sad pouting face I would need to make up for later when we were alone. Hopefully once we were on the mission in the Holistia Nebula we wouldn’t have to sneak around like this.

  “Alright, that’s it for the briefing; over the next cycle we’ll be informing you all of your individual assignments.” Captain Seash offered.

  “As for the ground team, you’ll be spending the time working with our agents to establish your covers; we aren’t expecting professional-grade acting or anything, but we’ll expect you all to portray your roles believably.” Commander Durgo added.

  Doctor Gorgam blinked out the holograms from the room as he turned off his console, “Thank you for your time everyone. Dismissed.”