by R. E. Vega
Yuki didn’t reply, but Kaylin heard the voice of the third man on board the ship, though not through the open channel. “Who is Yuki?”
“I have no idea,” came the captain’s voice. We’re not playing the same game, Kaylin heard him think.
A blade of fear twisted in Kaylin’s gut as she came to the same realization.
The voice of the captain of the purple-insignia ship came through the comm again. “Return Dayna to us, and we’ll consider allowing you to live.”
ULAN
Slowly, in bits and pieces, his senses returned.
His hearing came first. He heard the hum of a moving spacecraft beneath his ear, but it wasn’t the normal hum of Defiance. This was…higher. Thinner. Definitely a smaller vehicle.
He also heard someone moving near him. In his time with the crew of Defiance he’d come to know the regular sounds of his crewmates quite well—he could identify each person’s footfalls from a quarter of the ship away. He knew every crewmate’s cough, sneeze, and sniffle. He could distinguish the sound of Brax scratching himself from the sound of Thad doing the same—though often he wished his perception weren’t quite so acute. There were certain things—certain human bodily functions—he wished he couldn’t hear or identify.
Either way, though, he knew immediately that whoever was in this ship with him—not very far from him, by the sound of things—wasn’t a member of Defiance’s crew. But the movements of this person, whoever it was, weren’t entirely unfamiliar. The back of his brain tingled, but any time he tried to think too hard, that tickle turned into a pulsing pain.
He tried to open his eyes, but when he realized how much effort it would take, he decided to wait a while and try again later. Besides, he had enough of his wits about him to realize that he was at an advantage as long as his kidnapper—it had to be a kidnapper—thought he was unconscious. He needed to lie still, gather his strength, and figure out exactly what had happened to him. He wasn’t bound, which was strange for a kidnapping.
The last thing he could remember was standing in one of the corridors of Defiance, trying to use his virtue…and then everything going black.
Had someone—his kidnapper—struck him and knocked him unconscious? He’d never live it down is some measly human got the jump on him.
But no, that didn’t seem quite right. He was fairly certain that the splitting pain in his head came entirely from his attempts to use his virtue. But then where was he? How did he end up here? How much time had passed? And where was the rest of the Defiance’s crew—had they been kidnapped, too? Was this another attack by that strange ship?
Whatever was going on, this was rather a drag.
The other person near him made a soft sound—almost like a gasp—and suddenly, Ulan was able to place the almost-familiar sounds she made. It was their passenger, the girl known as Yuki. He’d been trying to find her when he fell unconscious.
Carefully, he opened his eyes just enough to see. He was indeed lying next to Yuki, and the girl looked terrified beyond belief.
If she’d just listened to me, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.
It appeared that his kidnappers had gotten her, too.
He listened a moment longer, trying to sense if there was anyone else nearby. When he sensed no one, he opened his eyes all the way and started to sit up.
The girl shrieked and nearly fell over.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, starting to get annoyed with her. He was only trying to help—honestly, humans could be so dramatic sometimes.
To her credit, Yuki recovered fairly quickly from the shock of seeing him awake. She gripped the yoke with renewed force, a determined look settling across her features.
“They’ve found us,” she said. “They’ll kill you if they get you. They hate A’lyph.”
“Who? And where are we, exactly?” He glanced around.
“In one of the escape pods. It was our only chance.”
Alarm shot through him, and with it came a fresh stab of pain in his head. “Did something happen to Defiance?”
“We’re fine, Ulan,” came the captain’s voice in his earpiece.
“Well, for the moment, anyway. That damned girl freaked out and dragged you into one of the escape pods. We’ll deal with her later. Right now, we have company. Look out the viewport.”
Stiffly, he dragged himself up to his knees. “Captain? Where are you?”
“In the other escape pod with Brax. We were coming after you when our purple-eyed friends attacked again. Listen, Ulan—I need you to take the controls away from the girl. She doesn’t have an earpiece so I can’t communicate with her. And you need someone flying that thing who actually knows what the hell they’re doing.”
And Ulan could see why—in front of them was a vessel much like the one that had been chasing them earlier, the same purple symbol painted on the side. As he watched, though, the enemy vessel made no move to attack.
“What are they waiting on, Captain?” he asked.
“They want Dayna.”
“Dayna?”
“I knew we should have pressed her for more information,” Brax said, suddenly joining them on the line.
“We’re not having this discussion right now,” the captain said. “Dayna has her orders. Ulan—I need you to take control of that pod and steer it away from Defiance, out of the immediate reach of the enemy.”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaned over toward Yuki, who was still staring through the viewport with a mixture of terror and determination on her face.
“I’ll be flying from now on,” he told her, trying to peel her hands off the yoke. She was gripping it so hard that her knuckles were white, but the moment she realized he was touching her, she jumped and released the steering device on her own.
“Get out of my way,” Ulan told her, sliding into the seat and trying to push her aside with his hip. “Unless you want us to get killed.”
She didn’t argue. She slid out of the seat but remained just beside him, watching and waiting.
“I knew they’d find me,” she whispered.
“Well, then you should have stayed in your bunk,” he said. “At least the Defiance has weapons.”
She looked sharply at him. “That didn’t keep them from getting on the ship.”
“What? They’re on Defiance?”
Yuki nodded vigorously, but at the same time, the captain’s voice sounded in his earpiece.
“Oh, dreck,” the captain said. “She’s completely insane. She thinks you were attacked by those freaks.”
“Wait, so they’re not on the ship, right?” he asked his captain.
Before Captain Arleth could answer, Yuki said, “I heard you scream.”
“I wasn’t attacked,” he told her. “That was just from all the pain from…never mind. I don’t know why I’m explaining any of this to you. You dragged me onto a freaking escape pod with no weapons in the middle of a fight.” He’d managed to steer the escape pod away from the main line of fire, but that didn’t mean they were out of trouble yet.
“Why the hell did you run from me earlier?” he asked her. “If you’d stayed in your bunk, I could be back there helping my crewmates right now.”
For a moment, she looked almost shamefaced—but it was hard to tell beneath the terror still in her eyes.
“I… You scared me,” she said finally.
“Well, you annoy me.”
She blinked at him. “I…”
“Annoy me. Yes. You are, in fact, the most annoying passenger we’ve ever had on Defiance. Most of the others have been pretty good about staying in their bunks and not causing trouble.”
She turned away from him. “I wasn’t trying to cause trouble.”
“I don’t care what you were trying or not trying to do. The fact is, you did.” He shot a quick glance at her before looking back out the viewport. “Oh, dreck, you’re not going to cry, are you?”
“No,” she said.
He didn
’t bother looking to see if she was telling the truth or not.
He didn’t have the patience for that right now.
“I don’t know why you’re so freaked out,” he said. “They’re not even after you. According to my captain, they’re after Officer Jackson.”
“They are?”
“Yes, I just told you they are. Honestly, you humans never listen.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Apologies don’t mean anything in deep space. Just listen next time.”
“I just don’t understand—they should be after me. They never let anyone escape. And I…”
“Why should I know why they’re after who they’re after? I’ve never even seen one of them in the flesh. I’m just trying to get us out of this alive.” He tapped his comm. “Captain, may I have permission to cast our passenger off the ship if she keeps asking—”
“No!” Yuki exclaimed, grabbing his arm. “Please, don’t. I promise I’ll stop…stop asking questions, or being annoying, or…”
He allowed a short laugh to escape. “Ah, you humans don’t know how to take a joke either, do you?”
She released his arm and stumbled back a step. “You’re just joking?”
“Obviously I’m joking. What sort of horrible person do you think I am? Wait—don’t answer that. You’re probably one of those people who believes that A’lyph are all savage, evil, unrefined beings, aren’t you?”
She wouldn’t look at him. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. I assure you, though, A’lyph aren’t any more terrible than humans are. And by many accounts, we’re much more refined. Whether humans want to admit it or not. We—”
His voice cut off when he saw the explosion in front of him.
He hadn’t been included in the communications between the rest of the crew—he’d simply been following his captain’s orders to steer the pod away. And while he’d been watching the Defiance and the enemy ship carefully, he’d looked away just long enough to miss the attack.
He hadn’t seen who shot first, or even who’d shot at all—it was too late for that. In under a second, both ships had disappeared behind a blast of light, and before he could make sense of what he was seeing, a wave of debris hit the tiny escape pod. It pushed the tiny vessel over, spinning it around and propelling them away from the blast.
“Captain,” he said into his earpiece as soon as he could. “Captain, what happened?”
There was no answer.
DAYNA
Dayna had to push down her momentary blaze of giddiness when Defiance’s laser gun hit the ship with the purple markings on the side.
Her glee was quickly replaced with horror when she saw the flash of white light, but at least she finally understood how it was that they’d been able to find her.
Dayna still didn’t understand how her new visual abilities worked, and she wasn’t able to use them on what had happened to the other ship—not quite, anyway. But she did recognize the brilliant burst that came from the other ship as a temporal flare.
There was no way to know if she’d hit the other ship in its weak spot before they made the jump. Even worse, there was no way to know where—or more likely when—the other ship had gone. She could only hope that the pods hadn’t been caught in the disturbance.
She ran a quick scan to check on the two pods—they were still too far away to see with the naked eye on the viewport. When she located the captain’s pod with the scanner, she was able to focus her new vision in that general direction to be able to see it with her own eyes. Whatever was going on with her eyes, it didn’t seem intended for what she needed it for now—to check on the welfare of her crewmates. She could see both the captain and Brax were inside the pod and breathing, but she couldn’t tell much more than that.
But the other pod didn’t show up on the scanner. The other ship was also gone, which she’d expected, but the pods were far enough away when they’d made the temporal jump that they shouldn’t have been affected.
Dayna scanned again. And again. But there was nothing. Just a wide swath of empty space with only the one escape pod.
She tapped at the comm device on her ear. “Captain?”
There was no response.
She tapped again. “Brax?”
Nothing.
“Ulan?” Dayna knew trying to contact Ulan was a long shot, but it was worth a try.
The doors to the bridge opened with a swoosh and Thad stepped inside, crossing the room to take the seat next to her.
Thad tapped a few buttons on his console. “The engines should be back online in a few minutes. Did we get the pods back?”
“Captain Arleth’s pod will be in range of the tractor within another two minutes. But Ulan’s pod…” She didn’t want to try to explain to him what she already knew had happened. That he was gone, and that it was going to be damn near impossible to tell where, let alone when.
And it would be impossible to explain that she should have known. That she’d been exposed to that technology when she’d been their captive—that she’d helped develop that technology, for God’s sake. How the hell could she ever explain that to any of her crewmates?
“How does it work?” Thad’s voice was low, almost as though he didn’t want anyone else hearing the question, though there was no one else on the bridge at the moment.
Dayna’s gut twisted on itself, more from the guilt of knowing she’d lost Ulan to them than from the question from Thad. “How does what work?”
“The temporal technology. You said you helped develop it—”
“I never said anything. I didn’t…” She didn’t know how, but it was suddenly clear to her that Thad was able to read her mind. “How…how did you know?”
“I…” Thad’s mouth fell open as he realized what he’d said. “I’m not sure.”
“You heard what I was thinking.” Dayna turned to him. “I know you did. It’s what they gave you, isn’t it? Mind reading power?”
His brow furrowed and he turned back to his console. “It’s more like thought reading than mind reading. I wouldn’t have to ask how it worked if I could actually scan your mind for the info.” He fell silent again for a moment, tapping almost mindlessly at the console. His voice was quiet, almost a whisper when he spoke again. “The captain is unconscious.”
“I know. I…” The crew having these weird powers was going to take some more getting used to. “I suppose you can read her thoughts, too.”
He nodded, but there was something more. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was worried about their captain—in a way that suggested more than just the way a crewmember would worry if one of their own was injured.
And she had to get stupid x-ray vision. Being able to read someone’s mind would be so much more helpful than being able to see things at a molecular level.
“For what it’s worth, I’d trade you if I could.” Thad scanned the viewport, probably searching for the pod to come into view. They weren’t going to be able to do anything with the short-range tractor until it was close enough to the ship to be able to be seen with the naked eye. “I’m not sure how much thought reading is worth. Though, I guess it’s nice to know I can read more than just Kaylin’s thoughts…” He cleared his throat, obviously trying to hide the fact he’d shared more than he’d intended.
Dayna lifted a brow, but said nothing. She’d been pretty sure for the past few weeks that Thad and the captain had been acting…odd. Particularly around each other. But she’d brushed it off, sure that she was imagining it, especially when the flirting between Captain Arleth and Brax had been as fierce as it had ever been. Surely the captain wouldn’t be with both men. Or maybe she would. It was her ship, after all, and Dayna supposed the captain could do whatever she wanted. Or whomever she wanted.
She sighed, trying to push the thought from her mind. It didn’t matter, anyway. Dayna felt nothing for any of them. Especially Brax. Taking the job on board Defiance had been nothing mo
re than a way to escape the purple-eyed freaks. It wasn’t worth getting emotionally involved with any of them, not when the job on board this ship was going to be short-term. Not that four years had been particularly short-term, but she was sure things were going to change when the captain came back and realized Ulan was gone and that Dayna’d had something to do with his disappearance.
“It’s not your fault, Dayna.” Thad still didn’t seem to want to make eye contact. “You did what you needed to do to protect your ship, your crew. The captain isn’t going to hold you at fault for that. And we’ll figure out how to get Ulan back.”
Dayna tried not to growl under her breath. “Could you…not read my thoughts? Or at least not answer them?”
He chuckled. “Sorry. There’s not a ton of difference between the sound of your thoughts and the sound of your voice. The thoughts are a little…tinnier. But otherwise, they sound the same.”
“Well, I’d prefer it if you’d leave my tinny thoughts alone, if you don’t mind.” Dayna didn’t want to make eye contact this time, especially if Thad had heard the part about her suspicions of Captain Arleth’s relationship with him. It was taking every ounce of effort to control her thoughts—to keep them focused on figuring out how to get the escape pod containing Brax and the captain back on board.
“I see them.” Thad pushed another button on his console. “I’m readying the tractor device for deployment.”
Dayna did her part on her console, and a moment later the escape pod was in their grasp, being pulled slowly back to Defiance.
“A temporal shockwave shouldn’t have knocked them out. Something else had to have happened.” Dayna stood, preparing to go to the bay where the tractor would deliver the pod. “I didn’t see anything else—just the little anomaly on the port side of the other ship. It should have taken out their engines, not sent them into another dimension.”
Thad nodded. “We can run the diagnostics later. Right now, we need to get the captain and Brax to the medical bay for a scan.” He paused, standing up himself after a moment. “And Dayna?”