Chapter 231 – The Missing One

Jefferson was a little unsettled, so he got up and said to Su Jin and the rest, “Come with me.”

Nobody in the group objected to this, of course. Team Volcano Mountain stood up as well, so Jefferson said to them, “Check out Mr. Arkas’ side. Fearless will direct you.”

The team had already seen how Su Jin communicated with Fearless, and they just needed to follow the directions given by the spaceship to get to Arkas, so they nodded in agreement without hesitating.

Jefferson walked out of the cafeteria, and Su Jin’s team followed after him. The other team went in the direction given by Fearless.

Su Jin’s team and Jefferson soon came to a place that resembled a beehive. It was a giant beehive made up of several hexagonal modules. Most of them were already open. This was where everyone had been hibernating.

There were mobile teleportation devices all around the beehive, so they watched as Jefferson did something with his watch, and they were all quickly teleported to a module that wasn’t open.

“Fearless, open up the hibernation pod door,” commanded Jefferson.

The door to the module moved a little after Jefferson gave orders, but did not open. Fearless responded, “I’m sorry, Captain Jefferson, but the door’s shape is slightly off and the mechanism is unable to function.”

“What?” Jefferson was stunned to hear this. He touched the door and found that its shape was indeed slightly off. If the Fearless hadn’t said so, nobody would have noticed, unless you had an extremely sharp eye.

“Damn it,” cursed Jefferson. He had a bad feeling about this.

Su Jin walked up to him and said, “Let me try!” He placed his hands on the two ends of the door, then exhaled quietly. There was a cracking sound as Su Jin pulled the door right off its own frame.

Jefferson stared at Su Jin in disbelief and exclaimed, “My goodness! How are you so strong?”

Su Jin grinned and said, “That’s not quite what happened, Captain. Even if I were the strongest man in the world, I couldn’t possibly be stronger than a machine. But this door is already out of shape, so pulling it off just requires a little technique. You don’t actually need a lot of strength.”

Jefferson had an enlightened look on his face, and he thanked Su Jin for opening the door. White mist had surged out after the door was removed, and once the mist had cleared, everyone stood in stunned silence at what they saw.

There was absolutely nobody inside. Su Jin frowned, then asked, “Captain Jefferson, are you sure Captain Reginald stepped into this pod?”

Jefferson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He took a step back in horror and landed on his butt as he muttered inaudibly to himself. Nobody could hear what in the world he was saying. He just kept shaking his head.

Situ Jin stepped forward to help him up, but Jefferson suddenly lunged straight into the pod as though he was looking for something. He was just sprawled on the floor and looked like he had lost his mind.

But when Su Jin and the rest tried to approach the pod, he suddenly yelled, “Don’t come in! None of you are allowed to come in!”

All of them froze in their steps and Jefferson continued to mumble to himself, except that the rest could hear him clearly now. “That’s impossible. The hibernation pod can only be activated from the inside. Reginald must be inside here. He must be inside here!”

Kano Mai tugged at Su Jin’s sleeve and said, “Jin, there’s something wrong with Captain Jefferson. He looks like he’s on the verge of a breakdown.”

Su Jin nodded in agreement. Unfortunately, he couldn’t use his psychokinesis, or he would have scanned this entire place and found out what happened.

“Those were just nightmares, just dreams… they can’t be real…” Jefferson collapsed weakly onto the floor, as if all his energy had been sapped out of him.

Su Jin cautiously walked into the pod. Jefferson wasn’t as agitated anymore. He looked at Su Jin apologetically and said, “I’m sorry. I… I got a little too worked up earlier.”

Su Jin patted his shoulder to assure him, then scanned the inside of the pod. The white mist had been completely eradicated after Jefferson had searched the pod, so he could see the inside very clearly.

“Hmm?” said Kano Mai quietly. She remained outside the pod and pointed out one corner of the pod to Su Jin. There was a pile of white powder there. It wasn’t a large pile and the pod itself was also painted white, so Su Jin hadn’t noticed it. Kano Mai’s eyesight had been strengthened before, so she was the only one who saw it.

Su Jin squatted down to take a closer look, and Wu Chen came in as well. He reached out and swiped a bit of it with his finger, then sniffed it. He looked like he was making a drug deal of sorts.

“How’s the goods? Pure enough for ya?” asked Su Jin with a chuckle.

Wu Chen nodded. “You bet it’s pure. It’s ultra pure calcium powder. Even purer than calcium supplement pills!”

“What do you mean?” Su Jin blinked in confusion.

“Make a wild guess. What in this pod could possibly produce calcium?”

Su Jin wasn’t stupid. He immediately realized what Wu Chen was suggesting. His expression fell as he said, “Are you saying… this was left behind by Captain Reginald?”

“Uh huh. Unless the humans on this spaceship have evolved to a point where they can extract the calcium directly from their bodies like this, I have no idea how else this could happen,” said Wu Chen with a shrug.

“He might not be able to do it himself, but… I’m not so sure about those things.” Su Jin frowned. He was now pretty sure that those aliens had begun their attack. Why else would a hibernating Captain Reginald go missing all of a sudden?

Jefferson was still in a daze, and his expression was still blank until Su Jin helped him up. And in that moment when Su Jin helped him to his feet, he suddenly felt like all his hair was standing on end, as if someone was pointing a gun at him.

“Who’s there?” bellowed Su Jin. He flicked his fingers, and a tremendous force was unleashed, forcing the air in front of his fingers to move in a particular direction.

There was a muffled noise as Su Jin’s attack hit the ceiling on the inside of the door frame, making a hole in it. But when he walked over to look, he did not find anything there.

“What’s happened?” asked Jefferson puzzledly. He had heard Su Jin’s shout, but he hadn’t noticed that Su Jin had made a hole in the pod by driving air into it.

“Nothing, I was just a little overly paranoid,” said Su Jin as he shook his head. They walked away from the pod, since there was nothing inside it at all. They were now more concerned about how Arkas was doing.

After they left, a green liquid suddenly started flowing from the hole that Su Jin had made. It seemed like something had crawled away from that place.

By the time they returned to the cafeteria, the other team was already waiting for them. Jefferson asked them immediately, “Is Mr. Arkas alright?”

“He’s fine, he just fainted, that’s all,” said the leader of the team as he took a step to the side. An old white haired man was standing behind him with a rather tired look on his face.

“I’m fine. It was probably an after effect of the hibernation. Sorry to make everyone worry,” said Arkas apologetically.

Jefferson shook his head and told the old man it was alright. He then said to Fearless, “Call for a meeting with everyone with Level 1 access. Our ship has run into a strange matter beyond our imagination.” He turned to Su Jin and the rest and said, “You guys should come along too. You belong to the batch of people who woke up first, so there are some things we need to ask you.”

Everyone nodded, so Jefferson said to the rest of the people in the cafeteria, “Everyone, have a good rest and recover from any discomfort brought about by the hibernation process. Once we’re done checking the warp drive, we’re going home!”

“We’re going home!” All the crew members in the cafeteria started cheering loudly. It was clear that even though they spent most of the last 100 years sleeping, they still missed home terribly.

The group of owners followed Jefferson and Arkas out of the cafeteria. Arkas was also granted Level 1 access and was one of the three top academics on board. Su Jin suddenly said to Jefferson, “Captain Jefferson, I would like to ask you something.”

“Oh? What is it?” Jefferson nodded.

“Nobody brought back any of the specimens, offspring, or genetic material of the aliens found in the Hiding Place of God back onto the Fearless, right?” asked Su Jin solemnly.

Jefferson paused for a moment, then shook his head confidently. “We definitely did not do that. We’re not so foolish as to do that. We know very well how dangerous those things are, so how could we have…”

He suddenly cut himself off and his expression faltered as he mumbled, “Unless… damn it! Those damned biologists wouldn’t have done such a thing, right? That would be completely insane of them!”

“Fearless, tell the biologists to meet with me. Also, send everything that they brought on board, including their personal items, to me. I want to request that everything be sealed for the entire journey and nobody is to touch those things.” Jefferson was a very decisive man.

A few moments later, they arrived at a place that looked like a meeting room. There were others already waiting inside, and they all bowed politely as Jefferson walked in. They were of differing races, and there were three men and two women. The five of them, plus Jefferson, Arkas, and the missing Reginald made up the eight Level 1 access crew on the Fearless.

Jefferson bowed back in response but did not say anything. After waiting for a while more, four biologists arrived. Out of the two men and two women, one of them was older, while the other three were young people. Of course, that was their body’s current age – if you added the 100 odd years of hibernation, they would all be centenarians.

“Captain Jefferson, we’re all here now. Can you finally tell us what happened?” asked one of the captains.

Jefferson nodded and said in a somber voice, “After we turned off the hibernation pods, Captain Reginald’s pod did not give any response at all. I brought a group over to check his pod, only to find that the pod was still in operation not too long ago. But after we opened the pod, we discovered that… Captain Reginald had disappeared.”