by Selena Kitt
“You okay kid?”
I nodded and smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Lieutenant Gray leaned back against the steel wall of the hangar and watched me closely. “You remind me of myself at your age, you know.”
I looked away, feeling my eyes begin to prickle. “Thank you, sir,” I whispered, willing the knot in my throat to go away. “It’s an honor to hear you say that.”
“It’s a crime what he’s doing,” he muttered.
I shrugged, afraid to voice my opinion in the wide-open space. I had no idea who was listening and might report me back to the Commander. Not that he’d be able to think of a punishment quite as grave as this one.
“Have you been able to speak to your folks? You know, to...” He gestured helplessly around the hangar.
I shook my head and squeezed my eyes closed. They were gone. Everyone was gone. I tried to send my mind elsewhere, to maintain my composure. That’s how I wanted them to remember me—calm and composed, not scared and emotional.
Lieutenant Gray pursed his lips, the muscles in his jaw twitching. “I tried reasoning with him,” he whispered. “But my wife and kids depend on me. I couldn’t put my head on the block.”
I shrugged. “I understand, sir. Just knowing that you tried... it means a lot.”
He clamped a huge hand on my shoulder. “Good luck, kid. You’ll need it. You know, the thing that gets me is you might have had a chance if you were a little older and more experienced.”
I smiled, feeling the first surge of hope I’d felt in weeks, since the reality of my situation had sunk in. “Really? You really think that?”
He nodded, his expression solemn. “Sure I do. You have grit.” He leaned closer to me, his voice barely louder than a whisper. “But I meant you might have been ready in five, six years. Not now. Why d’ya think the Commander chose you?”
I froze, wondering how to react. Should I tell him the truth?
I looked at the explorer docked beside us. Was there another explanation I wasn’t thinking of? Because it sure didn’t seem that way—and I’d spent hours thinking about it. But what was the point in voicing my conspiracy theory now? Even if he did believe me, what could he do? I sighed and shook my head. “No idea.”
“You ready, rookie?”
I glanced behind us to see Tom, my new partner, standing in the doorway.
“Sure am,” I said, nodding and moving toward the explorer.
Chapter Four
Laura
“What is that?” I asked, frowning at the display.
We shouldn’t have encountered another ship so close to the Orion. But a blurred blob had just flashed on the screen in front of me. It was too indistinct to be a ship or an asteroid.
Tom leaned across the console and stared at the screen. “I can’t see anything.”
“There.”
He stared at it for a couple moments.
“Well? What was it?”
He moved back to the controls. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Just some space gunk.”
“Does it worry you? We shouldn’t be seeing anything out here, not yet.”
He smiled and shook his head. “Girl, there’s a lot of weird stuff in space. But you’re right. There’s nothing significant out here. You’ll learn that.”
I bit my lip. “You’re saying it doesn’t worry you?”
He shrugged. “I’m more worried about hitting up Havlor territory than I am about some strange space matter.”
“But this is Earth territory. Shouldn’t we know what’s out there?”
He stared at me with a strange look in his eyes. “You know how large Earth territory is?”
I smiled as much as I could. “Of course.”
“Think about it,” he laughed, shaking his head. “There’s a lot of weird alien shit out there. But we’ve got this. Look, just relax. Okay? You’ll have plenty to worry about once we reach Havlor.”
Even hearing that name set my nerves on edge. If we disappeared like the others, what would happen? Would they send a ship to look for us? Or would they tick off our names and prepare the next search fleet?
I shook my head, wondering how I’d allowed myself to get into such a negative headspace.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Tom said, seeming to read my thoughts. “Stop freaking out.”
I whipped my head around to face him. “How did you know...?”
He raised an eyebrow. “It’s obvious. You flinch every time you hear his name or the word Havlor. Chill out. I was top of my graduating class. I’m the best shot in the unit.”
I smiled. I had to hand it to Tom—he’d been nothing but sweet ever since I was thrust into the Delta Unit, unlike a lot of the others. And who could blame them? They thought I was getting a free ride to something they’d worked their butts off.
“Thanks, Tom,” I said, smiling and thumping his arm.
“Hey, don’t get all sentimental, girl. We’re gonna be fine. You hear?”
I was rolling my eyes when we were suddenly thrust upward. I stared at Tom in shock, my stomach still lurching from the movement. “Don’t do that; you scared the shit out of me.”
It slowly dawned on me that he looked as frightened as I did.
“Tom?”
He shook his head, seemingly unable to speak.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know,” he croaked, staring at the monitors in front of him.
I tapped the buttons in confusion. I’d seen nothing approach us; neither had Tom given his reaction. Even now, there was nothing showing up on our screens. The only odd thing throughout the flight had been that strange flash on my screen, and we were thousands and thousands of miles away from it now.
“It’s nothing,” Tom said. “Maybe an asteroid too small to register on our monitors.”
Then I heard the scraping noise above us—it was impossible not to. It was so loud and screeching that it made me cringe away. I unbuckled my restraint and ran the short distance to the cockpit armory. Well, when I say armory, it was more like a box with two standard-issue laser guns inside. The main armory was beside the hatch at the back of the ship.
“Deactivating gravity,” Tom said. “It’ll give us an advantage.”
I didn’t like what I heard—his voice was usually so calm; now it was higher-pitched than usual. I attached my air mask. The scraping noise above us had stopped. I stared at the ceiling as I floated toward it with the lack of gravitational control.
“Do you think we’re breached?”
Tom floated toward me. “I don’t know, but I’m going to assume we have,” he muttered, his voice muffled by his mask. “That’s the thing. All the instruments show our status as normal.”
“Whoever this is—”
“Whatever this is...” Tom said ominously, trailing off when he saw the alarm on my face. “Come on. We need to get to the armory before—”
I swam desperately in the direction of the door, my heart thumping even before I heard it open. Zero gravity had seemed so fun in training; now it was preventing me from seeing what had just forced open the cockpit door. Although Tom’s face helped me fill in the blanks—all of the color had blanched from his normally tanned face.
“Tom,” I whispered, turning around to look at the doorway in confusion.
There was no one there, just empty black darkness. Tom started floating toward it; I reached for his arm but he was gone before I could grasp on to him.
“Stop,” I hissed. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s probably just a—”
I gasped as Tom suddenly shot back past me and crumpled against the controls on the other side of the room. And then the lights went out and I was falling through the air, landing hard on the steel floor. I lay there in the darkness, listening as hard as I could; waiting for the emergency lighting system to activate.
It didn’t.
I frowned. I wasn’t prepared for this. I’d been drilled on countless combat scenarios; even hijack. But this?
I wasn’t prepared for this.
“Tom?” My training told me not to give away my position, but I couldn’t help it. I needed to know he was okay. The way he’d crumpled against the controls like that...
I let out an involuntary squeal as I felt a hand close around my right bicep. Instinct told me it wasn’t Tom—it was too cold; too lifeless.
“Who are you?” I asked with as much authority as I could muster. “Identify yourself immediately. This is an Earth Planetary Guard ship. You have no business...”
Silence, human.
I gasped.
I hadn’t heard the words. It was more like... it was like they’d been spoken in my head. My heart raced and I tried to fight back the fear and work out what the hell was going on.
“Let go of me,” I hissed, trying to wriggle free of its grasp.
But its grip was vice-like. I tried to spin around; to lash out with my free hand, but somehow it knew and clung on to my arm so I only succeeded in almost dislocating my shoulder.
Chapter Five
Dex
My first instinct was to struggle, but I regulated my breathing and relaxed, allowing the carrier beam pull me off the ground and up toward the Doon ship. I knew from experience that it was better not to struggle—I’d seen those who struggled and ended up losing a limb from the force imbalance. Still; it wasn’t easy. I breathed in and out, glancing up above me to the bright light emanating from the hatch.
Who are you? A voice boomed in my mind as I was swept inside the vessel and hands reached for me.
“Dex,” I snapped, squinting around.
I couldn’t see anything—bright lights shone straight into my eyes, blinding me. Had they sensed my darksight? I had to hand it to these guys—they knew what they were doing.
State you purpose on Doon Minor, the same voice boomed.
I tried to place it, but it was impossible. The words were perfectly neutral and accent-free.
I shrugged. “Just... sightseeing.”
Answer truthfully. Or you might find yourself sucked into the nearest space vacuum.
Oh no. What do they want? I’m just a space tourist, I thought.
You’re lying.
“I’m not.”
Doon Minor is no tourist spot. You were sighted near an arcadium seam.
I shrugged. “I’m a scientist. I’m interested in that sort of thing. We don’t have minerals like that where I come from.”
Which is?
I could have shouted out in triumph then, but I kept my face neutral and my mind blank. One slip and my cover would have been blown. I wouldn’t allow that to happen. They may have been telepaths, but I was the one in control. They just didn’t know that yet.
Chapter Six
Laura
“What are you doing?”
I struggled as hard as I could even though I was only hurting myself. I wasn’t going to give in so easily. But it didn’t matter. The strange being dragged me through the darkness and along the corridor. I felt myself rise through the air and expected to hit the roof at any moment. But I didn’t. I kept rising and rising.
And then I realized. The roof. They’d docked onto our ship and taken off the roof. They’d somehow bypassed the most sophisticated sensor technology we had and docked onto our ship undetected.
“Let me go,” I said, trying to shrug the horribly cold hand off of me.
Cease, human. You have no value to us injured.
I shuddered as his cold words seemed to permeate my brain.
Value?
But it made no sense. The galaxy was riddled with unscrupulous traffickers, sure; but none of them would ever dare to hijack an Earth Planetary Guard ship and kidnap the crew. Not only that, but they wouldn’t have the technology to do so. We hadn’t been briefed on this—who were these creatures?
The grip on my arm grew tighter; so tight that I wanted to cry out in pain. I thrust the fingers of my other hand into my mouth to stop myself from making a sound—I wasn’t going to allow them to see they were getting to me.
You’re stubborn, human.
I frowned. I’d been careful to move as delicately as possible so they wouldn’t sense what I was doing. Had they felt the air move around us?
There is no sense in trying to understand our technology, human.
I froze. It was one thing sensing my movements; it was quite another to sense my thoughts.
“What the fuck are you?” I hissed, groping around me with my free hand to get some clue—any clue—as to my whereabouts.
But there was nothing unusual. The air was ambient; the same as on the explorer before we’d turned off gravity. There wasn’t a sound around us except for my own jagged breathing.
A hissing sound broke the silence. My ears pricked and I held my breath, desperate for any clue. But that was it. No light went on; no one spoke to me. I was pushed forward and heard the same sound again, this time from behind me. The grip on my arm was gone.
I turned around and stepped forward, my outstretched hands meeting a wall of cold metal.
“What is this place?” I gasped, slamming my fists against the wall in front of me.
I was met with silence. The only sound around me was my own labored breathing. Had they left me here?
“Tom?” I screamed, hitting the wall again with more urgency this time.
I slammed my hands into that metal until the blades of my hands ached and my body was jittery from the reverberations. Finally, I took a breath and tried to compose myself. I reached forward again, ignoring the pain. I couldn’t see a thing in the murky darkness, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t explore my surroundings with my fingertips. The metal was cold; solid. I fanned my hands out in ever-increasing circles.
It had to be some kind of door, I knew. They’d pushed me forward and I’d turned right around and met the wall. The hissing sound. I blinked and closed my eyes, trying to recall the exact sound. Hydraulics? Some sort of mechanism used to close the door? Or something else?
“You won’t find a handle.”
I turned around, startled. It was the first time I’d heard a voice since before they took me from my ship.
Heart racing in my chest, I turned in the direction the voice had come from, careful to measure the angle I’d turned at so I wouldn’t become disoriented.
“Who are you? Where have you taken me?”
I heard a short sharp rasping sound then; the context was so strange that it took me several seconds to identify it. Laughter. Not content with attacking my partner and kidnapping me, these creatures were mocking me?
I stepped forward in the direction of the sound, my hands ahead of me feeling for an obstruction or a change in the air temperature that might give me a clue as to their position.
“You think this is funny?” I gasped, my fear momentarily giving way to anger. “You attacked an Earth Planetary Guard ship. You know the consequences of that?”
My eyes were slowly adjusting to the gloom. I saw him before he spoke again; a huge bulk sitting in the corner of the room. I couldn’t see his face or anything else about him. Fear bolted through me again when the bulk moved and I realized he was getting to his feet.
“I don’t,” he said, his voice sounding even and sober. “I don’t at all.”
“Why were you laughing then?” I asked, fighting the urge to step backward away from this unknown enemy.
You are a soldier of the Delta Unit. You feel no fear.
Even from several feet away I could tell he towered over me. It towered over me. Not answering. Was he watching me, whatever he was? Did he have the power to see me in the darkness like the other creatures? To read my thoughts? I swallowed, clenching my fists and tightening my stomach muscles.
You are a soldier of the Delta...
He took a step closer. I stared ahead, blinking like crazy to try and force my eyes to adjust faster. Holy shit, we hadn’t been prepared for this; not at all. What had I been thinking? But no one back on the Orion had told us any different. T
he plan had been for both of us to sit tight until we reached the outer reaches of Havlor’s territory. Then I’d navigate while Tom armed the ship. If only I’d done that at the first signal that something was up; when we heard the scraping sound. Maybe then we could have fought the fuckers off.