"They won't let me go easily, they have been trying to get me into their faction for years now" said Maria
"It will be okay, I'll make sure of it" replied Seth as he walked her to her room.
"You need to sleep Maria"
"Not yet, I need to fix this"
"Sleep first" he replied as he put her on the bed.He slowly lowered her down and tucked her in before walking back out the door and was about to leave when she said "Don't do anything stupid" before she drifted off into sleep.
'Maria, it was not I who did something stupid this time'
...
In Seth's quarters he found Mongrel waiting for him.
"Where have ya been man? I was worried"
"They took me into an interrogation room"
"Ya have been gone for 6 hours" stated Mongrel as he mimicked a sleeping person.
"That long huh?No wonder Maria looked so tired"
"Why? Were they holding you?"
"Bullshit. Guess they weren't happy about not killing me"
"Hey man you cannot say that out loud"
"It happened"
"I know it did but ya cannot say it. So how did ya get out anyway?"
"Maria went to the Harenae faction to pressure the General, I assume"
"The Harenae faction? Those bastards are almost worse than the human faction"
"YeahI know"
"And Maria made a deal with them?"
"Asked for their help actually"
"Fuck man, that is worse, they could ask for anything in return"
"I know"
"And she will have to fulfill it"
"I know"
"So what are you gonna do?"
"Right now, sleep"
"Then?"
"I will have to go and talk to the faction"
"Well I am coming with ya"
"You don't have to Mongrel, it is okay"
"No it is not. We have a few months to go before we get to go back to the main fleet"
"Yes, I think so"
"Then I am going to go through another round of mutations"
"You can't Mongrel. It will kill you"
"Do we have a choice? As much as she is a pain in the ass she has saved our lives more times then I can count"
"Well you can't count very high"
"Hey man, not cool, ya know I am right"
"I do. I will have to do it with you then"
"Awesome"
"First though, I sleep"
"Okay" replied Mongrel, not moving.
"That means get out Mongrel"
"Oh right okay see ya when you wake"
"Right, see you then" said Seth before passing out on the bed.
'This is going to be hard to get out of' thought Mongrel as he looked back at his friend who was someone who had the most dangerous mutations in his body that any human had taken so far, but he was about to go though more because whatever the Harenae faction asked for would be extremely difficult as they would want to keep Maria indebted to them.
...
When Seth awoke he looked at the clock. Two days had passed since he fell asleep. The light in his room slowly got brighter before he started to get dressed and ready for the day, his wounds had almost healed completely.
"How am I going to do this?" he muttered to himself
"I need to debrief the General. I am sure he will be on my case for it. Probably should check in with Maria to see how she is going and see what she reported already. ThenI must prepare for the next mutation. I am already at the limit of mutations, I may need to enhance my body as well and go with a weaker mutation" Whatever Seth did it would be a long few days of preparation and navigating how he would act and what he would say. The enemies were at his door but he still needed to guard it.
"Maybe they will back off with the Harenae faction's involvement, but I doubt that they will be so hands off"
Seth made his way from his quarters. He had no weapons on him apart from two daggers and a pistol, as you always needed to be prepared for the worst in this place.Many other soldiers he passed had weapons on them as well. It was the normal, they were in enemy space and that means an attack could happen at any time, your life was your own to protect in those cases.
The halls were long and dark, the light was not used much as each light took power away from more vital operations of this old beast.She was put together fast and thus she had many drawbacks, like lacking power and speed.
Seth checked his uniform before opening the door as he rehearsed the debriefing he thought he would have to do to the General.
Maria opened the door looking better. The dark circles under her eyes were still there, but she didn't look nearly as bad as two days ago.
"Having trouble sleeping?"
"Yeah I am"
'The stress?'
"What else"
"Can I come in"
"Yes come on" replied Maria behind her solid door. As she opened the door completely Seth could see her whole room, it was dark and she was in loose fitting clothing.
"Settling in for the night?"
"Yeah getting into the second portion of my scheduled time off" said Maria
The ship ran off an 18 hour day split into three, as the ship had to run constantly and there was no sun or light here to begin with.
"Are we moving back to the main fleet?"
"Yes, it just started. The clean up of the Druin took longer than was allowed for, mainly due to them scattering after our take off"
"How much detail did you go into with the debrief to the General?"
"Not much, just a quick overview. I did not want to be there and I got the feeling he did not want me there either after he got chewed out"
"So about the Druin over out ships location that he only knew"
"He said that was an oversight, avoidable if we kept in contact more"
"Haha, we are supposed to run silent most of the time, what is he on about?"
He is just trying to lessen his blame. When you go in there stick to just the mission, not anything that happened onboard. Not how injured you got, just the absolute basics"
"When is he expecting me?"
"I can arrange a time in about 8 hours"
"That will work. I have to make a stop first. Do you know if Mongrel is on the same shift cycle as you?"
"All our squad got different schedule times apart from us, they are on the opposite"
"Trying to split us up"
"Seems that way, at least they haven't been reassigned yet" stated Maria, her expression neutral. She knew this was a part of the deal that the higher ups had games they liked to play.
"You get some rest, I will handle it so do not worry for tonight, okay.I have your back and so does Mongrel"
"Thank you Seth, I am unsure of what you can do in the current situation, but thank you"
Seth smiled at Maria before leaving her to rest. His next stop was Mongrel's place for I would need an ally, and who would be better than one of his best friends and a mean shot.