Soul of Defiance

by R. E. Vega

  Carefully, she made her way over to where he lay. She had to step over a body to get to him—a dead one of them—but she wasn’t afraid. She wouldn’t care if all of those purple-eyed monsters were murdered in cold blood.

  “Ulan?” she said, kneeling down next to her companion. Could she call him that—a companion? He certainly was the closest thing she’d had to one in a while, even though he didn’t seem to like her very much. “Ulan, are you okay?”

  She reached out and gently shook him by the shoulder.

  He didn’t move.

  Heart in her throat, she checked the sensors on his suit, reading his vitals. He was still breathing. And his heartbeat, while slow, was still pulsing along. He was alive, at least.

  She shook him again, trying to revive him, but he didn’t stir.

  Frowning, she straightened and looked at the screen. The purple-eyed freaks hadn’t recruited her for her technology skills—she had other gifts they wanted—but she’d been around their machinery for most of her life. She studied what Ulan had already done, and she thought she understood the basics of it. He’d only been a couple of commands away from restoring the proper air conditions for humans and A’lyph.

  Hand shaking, she tapped the screen. Her gloved fingers felt thick and clumsy, but she could take off this suit as soon as things were back to normal.

  Just don’t screw this up, she told herself. Despite her conviction to die rather than return to her purple-eyed tormentors, she still planned to live for a while yet.

  One click on the screen.

  Two.

  She finished the command, and almost instantly she felt everything change. Her suit protected her from the dangerous air conditions, but she was still aware of the shift. Her body could feel the pressure change.

  After a moment, the system beeped, alerting her that the air had returned to human-safe conditions.

  Still, she decided to keep her helmet and suit on for now. Just in case.

  She knelt down next to Ulan again. She wasn’t sure what else to do—in spite of her rudimentary understanding of how the technology here worked, she had no idea how to jump them back into the present. Ulan had a much better chance of doing that.

  “Ulan,” she said, shaking him a little harder than she did before. “We’re okay now. You need to wake up.”

  For a moment, she considered releasing his helmet—maybe the pressure shift would make him stir—but she decided it wasn’t worth the risk. She’d probably just need to wait. And what was a few more minutes, considering they were potentially hundreds of years in the past?

  BAANNNNG!

  She jumped. It couldn’t be…

  BAANNNNG!

  There was no denying it—something was throwing itself against the door again. Something big.

  “Ulan,” she said, shaking him again. “Ulan, you have to wake up.” She could hear the panic in her own voice, but it didn’t do anything to make Ulan move.

  She rose and turned back to the panel, hoping to engage some additional security. But Ulan had already done everything he could to protect the bridge—most of the ship’s defenses were outside, not within.

  She’d spent enough time with them to know that they kept all sorts of creatures—some that wouldn’t hesitate to tear off a human’s head and eat them for dinner if they had the chance. If they’d been transporting any creatures like that on this ship, the protective barriers on the kennels would have failed when the ship’s systems were fried. A stronger creature could have easily broken through the titanium cages without those barriers in place—and doors, as well.

  She looked around, desperate for anything she could use to defend herself. The beams across the door might hold the creature back if it managed to break through the metal panel, but she wasn’t going to count on that. She glanced down at Ulan. He had a light blaster gun on his belt, but she guessed that one of them might have something more powerful.

  She had to check three corpses before she found what she was looking for—a blaster with three glowing purple symbols stamped on the barrel. She wasn’t sure exactly what it was called or what made it so powerful, but she’d seen a couple of them use it. It was her best shot.

  BAANNNNG!

  The door groaned, nearly flying off its tracks—she didn’t have much time. Her fingers roamed over the weapon, her hands shaking. They’d never let her handle a weapon while she’d been their prisoner, but it couldn’t be too hard, right? Just point and pull the trigger.

  BAANNNNG!

  The metal panel bent in half. The metal hit the laser barrier just inside, and sparks flew. The creature on the other side screeched in pain.

  At least it knows the barrier can hurt it, she told herself. Maybe it will give up and go away…

  Instead, it hit the door again, bending the panel further into the room. The metal hissed as it hit the barrier, and the creature howled again—this time she couldn’t tell if it was in pain or anger.

  But enough of the door was out of the way now that she could see the beast on the other side. Her breath caught in her throat.

  She recognized this creature—she’d seen plenty of them during her time with them. It was easily nine feet tall, with long, matted hair on its back and scales like armor down its front, protecting its organs. It peered at her through the opening in the doorway, and its black eyes seemed to drive right into her, seeing down into her very soul.

  And she knew exactly what to do.

  KAYLIN

  The ship rocked to the side again, knocking both Kaylin and Thad from their chairs. As they struggled to regain their bearings, the high-pitched whine she’d heard earlier began again.

  “What the hell is that?” Kaylin tried desperately to read anything from the ship’s scanners, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing but the giant thing that still hovered in front of Defiance.

  “No idea.” Thad spoke through clenched teeth. “There’s nothing on the scanners that would indicate—”

  The ship jolted again, almost as though it was being hit with another shockwave, though there was nothing on any of their sensors to suggest there’d been anything out of the ordinary that had happened.

  “We need to figure out what the hell is going on. Or get the hell out of here.” Though she’d rather not abandon any of her crew, it was becoming more obvious by the second that the Defiance was in over her head. This definitely wasn’t the type of encounter Kaylin had had in mind when she’d purchased the ship eight years ago.

  “We can’t leave Ulan. Not without at least trying to get him back—”

  “If they really did make some kind of temporal leap, there’s no way we’re going to get him back. Not without Dayna’s help, and even then…” It was becoming clear to Kaylin that Dayna might be as much out of commission as Ulan at this point. Whatever was going on with the alien creature in front of them seemed to be affecting her tactical officer a hell of a lot more than it was affecting any of the rest of them.

  “I don’t…I’m not sure that they made a temporal leap, Captain.” Thad held the side of his station as the ship lurched again. “Or if they did, it seems like they might be back. Or…stuck.”

  “Stuck?” Kaylin tried to look over at Thad’s screen, but the constant lurching of the ship made it next to impossible to remain seated if she didn’t hold onto something herself. “What do you mean, stuck?”

  “I…I’m not sure.” Thad shook his head. “Nothing on the readout makes much sense. I…I’m pretty sure whatever we’re seeing is beyond our technological capabilities. At least our current abilities. If we could get Dayna…” His voice trailed off as he pushed a few more buttons. “Her expertise would be useful at this point.”

  Kaylin tapped at the comm button at her ear. “Brax, what’s Dayna’s status?”

  There was no response.

  “Brax? Report.”

  Nothing.

  Kaylin turned to Thad. “Is the comm down again?”

  He shook his head. “Not tha
t I can tell. But I think whatever keeps hitting us—” Another jolt to the ship interrupted him. “Whatever it is seems to be interrupting all of our systems. I’m pretty sure we couldn’t run now, even if we wanted to.”

  Damn it. Kaylin tried to hide her disappointment, forgetting for a moment that Thad could hear her every thought.

  If Thad was listening in, he didn’t respond. He seemed intent on his focus on whatever was going on around the alien creature. “I think…I can’t be sure with our limited sensors, but I think there might be some sort of tear out there.”

  “Tear?”

  Thad nodded as the ship took another hit. “I’m just guessing. And unless Dayna can come in here and reset the sensors to pick up what I think is going on—”

  “Just assume she can’t.” Or won’t. “I’m not sure we’re going to ever be privy to Jackson’s knowledge…” She paused. “I’m asking for your assessment of the situation, Hamilton.”

  His lips flattened to a line, and he slowly nodded. “I think we’re seeing a rip in space-time.”

  Kaylin had to force herself not to laugh out loud. “Right. We don’t have time for jokes, Thad. What’s your real assessment—?”

  “That is my real assessment, Captain. I think we’re seeing some sort of tear in space, and I think Ulan’s pod was caught up in it. Maybe that other ship, too. The readings are all over the place, and they keep popping in and out of existence. So unless you believe in other universes—”

  “I don’t.”

  “I don’t either. And if Jackson’s telling the truth—if she really did come from four hundred years in the future—then there’s no reason to think something outside our current knowledge might be going on.”

  “And you think whatever that…thing is out there has something to do with it? That it’s causing this rift?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe that other ship was doing something—”

  Thad was interrupted by the opening of the bridge doors. A bloodied Dayna stumbled in, tripping over herself to get to where Kaylin was seated.

  “Captain… You have to…” Dayna was breathless, hunched over and struggling to speak. “You have to let me… I need to…”

  Kaylin spun in her chair to face the other woman. “You need to get back to sickbay. Where’s Brax?”

  Dayna shook her head. “There’s something…” She grabbed the sides of her head, almost falling to her knees. “Please…please, Captain.”

  Kaylin stood, motioning for Dayna to take her seat. “What is it you mean to do, Jackson? I hardly think in your condition—”

  “It’s talking. It’s…speaking. The whine. The horrible, horrible whine…” She grimaced, clearly in pain from whatever it was she was hearing. “You can’t hear it?”

  “We’ve heard it more than once,” Thad answered. “But not at this particular moment—”

  “My God, I have to make it stop…” Dayna seemed to punch almost randomly at her computer, but after a few moments, Kaylin could see what it was she was doing.

  “I don’t understand why she can hear it now and none of the rest of us can.” Kaylin directed her comments to Thad. “Why would—?”

  “It had to be from whatever happened to us before. Whatever gave her the new visual perceptions… Maybe it gave her heightened auditory perceptions, too?” Thad looked as confused as Kaylin felt, but they both watched as Dayna pushed herself through her pain.

  Dayna typed slowly, pausing often to shake her head. After a few minutes, she turned to Thad and Kaylin. “I think…I think we can communicate with it now.” She blinked a few times before she fell forward, slumped across her station.

  Kaylin walked over to the injured woman, trying to assess her as best she could. It was clear her eardrums had ruptured, as blood dripped from both her ears. But there was nothing she could do for her from the bridge. She needed to be scanned and cared for in the medical bay, which would require someone to take her. “Where the hell is Brax?”

  Almost on cue, the bridge doors opened again, and Brax limped in. He glared across the room. “I’m going to kill her, Captain. I told you she was trouble. I told you from day one I…” He stopped when he saw Dayna unconscious. “What happened?”

  Thad turned from his seat. “What happened is Dayna fixed our sensors to be able to communicate with that thing. I think she also modified the sensors to be able to detect temporal anomalies.”

  “What happened to you?” Kaylin barely gave Brax a glance as she tended to Dayna.

  “I… She…” He groaned, crossing his arms over his chest. “She knocked me out, Captain. I…I told her she couldn’t come back here. I was about to sedate her, but she must have grabbed something and hit me with it. She…she lied to me, told me she needed to tell me something so I wouldn’t give her the meds. The next thing I knew, I was waking up on the floor.”

  “Sounds like our girl. Now get up to your station and see if you can figure out how to communicate with our friend out there.” Kaylin forced herself not to smile. She’d wondered a few times over the past four years if bringing Dayna on board was a good decision, but there were few who were able to stand toe to toe with Brax and the other strong personalities on board the Defiance. And fewer still who were female and immune to Brax’s charms. Not that she believed Dayna was completely immune, but she seemed better able to handle herself than most. And the technological advances Dayna had brought to Defiance were second to none. If Kaylin had known it was because she was from the future…she might have reconsidered her decision. But knowing her now, she didn’t have a single regret.

  “Do you have anything yet, Brax?” Kaylin didn’t turn from Dayna, but there wasn’t much more she could do at the moment than hold her hand.

  “I…I have no idea what I’m looking at, Captain. There’s nothing in the database—”

  “I have something, Captain.” Thad interrupted. “The ship…the one with the purple insignia… It’s coming through the rift. And it looks like they have Ulan.”

  ULAN

  He woke to the strangest, most unsettling sounds.

  Without moving, he tried to employ his extended senses, but he realized immediately that that was a mistake. As pain shot through him, everything came rushing back—the strange shivery feeling in his limbs, waking up on an escape pod with that annoying human girl, being transported somewhere in the past and having to break onto an enemy ship…

  He’d almost rather go back to sleep again.

  The last thing he remembered was finding his way into the enemy ship’s bridge and trying to re-enable the ship’s gravity. As he could now feel the cold metal floor beneath his legs, he must have done so. But he had a niggling feeling that there was some other pressing concern…

  The strange, almost animal noises came again, and he was jolted completely back into full consciousness. There’d been something else on the ship with them—something hunting them. It had been trying to break down the door when that horrible pain had shot through his head…and judging by what he now heard, it must have made it past the metal barrier.

  His view of the door was blocked by one of the instrument panels. He grabbed his blaster gun from his belt and slowly climbed to his feet. He had to be ready for anything.

  But he wasn’t the least bit ready for what he saw.

  Yuki was standing near the door, a strange-looking gun in her hand. But she wasn’t aiming that weapon at the beast that’d nearly torn down the door—no, instead, she was making strange clicking noises with her tongue.

  But as strange as she looked, Ulan found his gaze drawn to the creature itself—a huge beast covered in fur and scales that he didn’t recognize. That in itself was unsettling—part of why he’d been recruited onto the Defiance was because of his extensive knowledge of what humans liked to call the “alien” races—species that weren’t native to human-colonized planets. The A’lyph were the only ones in this galaxy that had the intelligence and ability to communicate with humans through a common language, but he still had a
lot of experience with other species—but this beast was like nothing he’d ever seen. It wasn’t found on either human- or A’lyph-explored planets.

  And the girl was showing an absolute idiotic amount of recklessness.

  Why doesn’t she just shoot the damn thing? Honestly, humans are completely worthless sometimes…

  Slowly, so as not to spook the creature, he moved toward the door, his blaster at the ready. The beast, for the moment at least, seemed intrigued by the girl and the sounds she was making. But it was clear from the damage it had done to the door that this creature was dangerous and could kill either of them easily if it wanted to. Fortunately, the laser barrier still seemed to be in place.

  He was nearly next to the girl before she noticed him. She jumped slightly, apparently startled, and stopped making those weird sounds.

  The creature’s eyes shifted to him, and slowly, he raised his blaster.

  “Wait? What are you doing?” the girl said, grabbing his arm. “You can’t shoot him!”

  “That thing is dangerous. We have enough to worry about without some strange creature trying to eat us.”

  “It won’t eat us. It only eats dead things.”

  “We’re about to be dead things if we can’t figure out how to get out of here.” He frowned. “And what makes you so certain about what it eats?”

  “Because this is a hundi. They used to keep them. They used their saliva for some of their experiments. And they used their… It doesn’t matter now. They’re friendly.”

  “It broke down the door. That doesn’t seem friendly.”

  “It was scared, I think. But now it’s not.”

  His frown deepened. “Wait—are you telling me you were actually communicating with this creature. Those sounds you were making—can you talk to it?”

  “No, of course not. But back on—back where they kept me, they had three of them. Sometimes, before they restricted where I could go, I’d go down to the kennels and look at all the creatures they had. They used to sort of talk to each other. I can’t do the sounds right, but I learned that if I clicked my tongue they got really interested in me. They even let me pet them. They’re really sweet if they aren’t afraid of you.” She looked up at him. “Can we undo the barrier? He’ll trust me more if I can touch him. There’s a place behind the ear where if you scratch them—”