Into the Void (Beyond Humanity Book 1)

by Kellie Sheridan

  Chapter Twelve – Linna

  The emotions ran like a current through the room. It was a decidedly unpleasant feeling.

  Linna stood to stand by the window, ignoring each of the gazes that was sure to follow her every movement. Not everyone on board this ship trusted her, or Toroque'que. The emotions of these people were easy to read, even if their thoughts were difficult to decipher. They were afraid, nervous, and stunned by everything they were learning, even if they tried to hide it. It was a dangerous combination, made ever more frustrating by Linna's inability to do anything at all.

  Not long ago, she had been surrounded by a ship full of her own people on a two-week mission to deliver a delegation of politicians to an inter-world health summit. On the way home, their ship had malfunctioned, drawing an unnamed energy source in, which after an hour-long struggle had brought them to this godforsaken place.

  Unable to move, they fought off attacks for as long as they could before finally succumbing to a raiding party. Linna and some of the others had made it to the escape pods, lasting only minutes before the attacking ships began to pick them off one by one. There was nothing to be done but sending thoughts of farewell toward her friends then watching them be destroyed before slipping away into the darkness. Whoever had killed her crew hadn't bothered chasing down her pod after she'd managed to escape their firing range.

  In a place like this, resources were key and she'd had nothing valuable to offer, her life worth no more than the almost useless pod she'd gotten away with. Her only saving grace, was that the pod's navigation controls hadn't been effected the same way the ship's had, likely because it could not go faster than light, and she'd directed it as she needed until she found someone that might be safe enough to help her survive long enough to come up with a new plan.

  She'd found Toroque'que, but was still working on a plan that might get them out of there. And from the stray thoughts and feelings she was getting from these new people, it didn't sound like they were going to be any more help than the enthusiastic Hailm had been so far.

  Linna's people, the Terssa, had never had a strong alliance with the Hailm, but it had been easy to see that Toroque'que meant well enough. He was old and scared and a little fat. He'd lived a pampered life on a fancy space station, never having to risk his life or fight for more. But he was nice, and after everything Linna would always be grateful for having met someone nice.

  So far, these people seemed neither nice nor particularly intelligent. Their ship was rudimentary, old-fashioned, and technologically deficient, their thought patterns sporadic. If nothing else, perhaps she could use them to get herself somewhere else, somewhere she might actually stand a chance.

  Not willing to turn her back on any member of this crew for more than a few seconds, Linna propped herself up against the wall beside the room's one large window, and watched the scene unfold in front of her. The humans expressed themselves using gestures that accompanied every few moments of speech, but as far as she could tell they didn't convey much more then emphasis, while Toroque'que's facial expressions shifted and changed to accentuate the tone of whatever he was saying.

  While the Terssa interacted with other races all the time, their form of communication was so fundamentally different than most species they encountered, that like it or not they tended to keep to themselves. Everything around her now was just so alien.

  The conversation carried on, Linna always separate. The dark-skinned human laughed nearly as much as Toroque'que. The female with unnatural blue hair studied the room constantly, never speaking but always ready to shoot if she had to. The ship's captain was trying so hard to mask the shock he was going through. He shared a healthy dose of guilt with one of the other females. The female with brown skin and wavy hair seemed to talk more than the rest, but her mind moved too quickly for Linna to keep up with without giving herself a headache. The last male didn't speak at all, he didn't even really seem interested in what was going on around him, which was unusual all on its own. And through all of them, fear.

  They were right to be afraid.

  Together, a few of the minds in the rooms seemed to switch to thoughts of hunger, a few more to sleep. They were preparing for rest when they needed to be getting ready for the coming battle.

  Linna had had enough. She was about to leave the room, fully expecting the blue-haired female to follow her wherever she went, when the silent male began gesturing toward the captain.

  What strange ritual was this, and what did it mean for Linna?

  The captain signaled back, using similar movements. Were they speaking? The captain's lips were moving as he gestured. It could mean anything.

  Linna searched the room for any hints from the others about what was happening, catching Toroque'que watching her in the process. He pointed at the silent human, then covered his own ears.

  The silent human was deaf. He couldn't hear any more of what was going on around him than Linna could. Less, since he didn't have her telepathic abilities. Surprising herself, Linna cocked her head in search of confirmation, pleasantly surprised at the update. She and this human, all these humans, were completely different. And yet here was one little thing that made her not as different.

  Toroque'que bobbed his head, prompting Linna to try to mimic the motions she'd just seen, raising her nearly black brows in hopes of more answers. Her companion of six days waved each of his fingers in front of his mouth. They were speaking to one another. Communicating with their hands.

  When Linna finally looked back at the mimed conversation happening near her, she was surprised to find the silent human watching her. Not stopping to think she raised both her hands, and settled them on her shoulders in the Terssa motion for hello. The human raised a hand and waved it back and forth, a thought that felt like a greeting brushed against the edge of her consciousness.

  For the first time in weeks, Linna smiled.

  Her new discovery wasn't enough to help her keep up with what was being discussed about it, and the longer they all stayed in that room, the more food was thought about and probably discussed, but still Linna felt less trapped by these people than she had, relaxed enough to even risk turning her back and gazing out at her real captor—the non-space all around them.

  It wasn't emptiness that waited for Linna, but movement. Light in the distance, moving quickly in their direction.

  A ship.

  Danger, Linna thought automatically, putting as much of her psychic power into the word as she could as she whirled back to face the rest of the room.

  No one moved, no one even shifted in their seats, completely oblivious to what was coming. Linna had survived in this space long enough to know trusting anyone was a risk, and with this ship being as primitive as it was, they didn't stand a chance in open combat. If they didn't leave now, they'd be rubble.

  How did verbal creatures get one another's attention? Linna turned back to look out the window, hearts racing. The ship was still coming. It was coming now, and it was coming for them.

  She stomped her feet like Toroque'que did when he was pleased by something, but only two of the women glanced up, then looked away again a moment later. No one expected Linna to speak, so no one looked up to see if she had anything to say.

  There was no time to waste on figuring out this new culture's niceties, or what the proper way to do things was.

  Linna moved to the one person she thought she had a chance of communicating with, the silent human sitting at the other end of the room. It only took waving her hand in front of his face once before she had his complete attention, if still no way to use it. She did not know a hand symbol for potentially hostile ship incoming.

  She was going to need something a bit more rudimentary. Linna grabbed the silent human by the wrist, doing her best not to seem hostile and hoping the angry female wouldn't shoot as she pulled the silent male to his feet, pulling him to the window.

  These people must have thought she was insane. But when she made it to the window, the
male behind her, there was no need for pointing or anything else. The entire crew heard her message loud and clear—they were in trouble.

  Chapter Thirteen – Evie

  There's no feeling in the universe like having an alien ship bearing down on you while simultaneously trying to cram yourself into a small bridge with seven other people, one of whom is an impressively large alien.

  Evie suspected that not everyone had fit themselves in the room at once, but she couldn't say for sure as she was jammed up against a wall, Gwynn's console, and Torque's … tail?

  This wasn't the time for asking those kinds of questions. Sprocket, Captain Briggs, and Torque were all talking over one another, taking in sensor data, and trying to come up with something that might resemble a plan. The only thing they could agree on was that yes, that was a ship that was coming toward them, but as Torque explained, sensor data wasn't always accurate in the void. And while he thought this one might have a similar signature to the fleet that destroyed his home, he didn't know for sure.

  "Well, unless we get some evidence to the contrary," Captain Briggs said, "we're going to assume this is a threat. The question, is what can we do about it?"

  "What kinds of weapons does your Lexiconis have?"

  "None. We're not that kind of ship." Weapons on board commercial vessels were all but illegal in the human system. Wars were still fought on the ground, and in the sky, but no country had ever invested in a fleet that could destroy from space, the repercussions were too unknowable.

  "Where I'm from, all vessels have weapons. You never know what you might find in deep space."

  "Not that helpful," Gwynn mumbled from somewhere nearby, but Evie couldn't rip her gaze away from the viewscreen long enough to acknowledge the ship's resident hacker.

  "Then we must hide." Torque nodded his head. "Go somewhere they cannot find you. Your ship is new to this space, they do not know that you have nothing valuable on board. If they find you, more will come."

  "Hide? Hide where!" Lincoln's voice came through on the speaker. It may have been Evie's imagination, but it sounded more impatient than usual, more frustrated. "There is nowhere to hide. And as soon as we move away from your ship, they're going to see us as clearly as we can see them."

  "Then we must go inside," Torque said as a matter of saving face. "Your ship is very small." That idea was enough to silence the bridge. "I can attempt to show you how to mask your power signature enough to get inside. You park, then we stay until they are gone, slipping away."

  "You make it sound so simple." Oliver hunched his shoulders before cricking his neck from side to side. They were out of ideas, and this one was as good as any. "But if this goes wrong, we'll likely never escape in time to run."

  "There is no running from the Hshazir here. They always return to pick apart the bones of those they've massacred. The best thing you can do for your crew is to make sure they don't know you're here in the first place."

  "Then that's what we'll do. Can you show Sprocket how to mask our signature while Lincoln and I scan for sections big enough for us to slip inside and plot a course?"

  To his credit, Torque only took a moment to study the human's system. "I will do my best. This has been a good day, and I do not wish for it to end in death."

  Evie let out a huff of amusement, stepping back just in time to avoid being trampled by Torque's wide boots. She knew she was in the way, but stepping off the bridge could mean the difference between knowing what was going on and being blown into oblivion without warning. Gwynn stepped around Evie without warning, already adding an idea of her own to the mix while Evie only made herself smaller, trying to take up as little space as possible.

  The team around her worked quickly. The people on board the Lexiconis were meant for moments like this one, while Evie's mind was still trying to catch up with and process everything that had happened.

  Both Safa and the alien woman hovered around the stairs to the bridge, out of the way, focused more on studying one another than what was happening above them. The alien moved her hands and raised her eyebrows in quick succession, before Safa would point to something then perform a hand sign.

  At least they were keeping busy.

  The Lexiconis moved without warning, shifting forward. In seconds, the alien structure took over more and more of the screen until it towered in front of them, too big to avoid.

  They were going in.

  Only once they had slipped entirely inside one of the large holes in the ship's siding did the Lexiconis turn on its lights, narrowly avoiding a support beam above them that had been ripped in two, Evie only exhaling once they were clear.

  Despite the massive damage that the structure had taken, its insides were no match for a ship, even one as apparently small as the Lexiconis. Progress was slow going, all the while Sprocket delivered a play-by-play estimate of how soon he thought the other ship would be on top of them.

  "We must find the first place we can," Torque said. "Whatever you can find will have to do. There is no more time. When my companion first detected your presence, I engaged a device that damped signals in the area, but we left it behind when you found us. I did not think I would need it again. And I cannot be certain how much longer it would last."

  That explained why they couldn’t raise the rest of the crew over comms, but wasn't all that reassuring. It had worked once. Would it help them now?

  Lincoln landed the ship on the most stable piece of solid ground he could find, settling them on what looked to be a shredded dance hall, most of which had been destroyed or jettisoned into the void. Evie would have given so much to see what this place had looked like intact rather than taking refuge in its remains.

  "Shut down your power," Torque said to the captain.

  "Everything?"

  "Yes. Take no chances. We can utilize the vital systems later if we have to, but for now, take no chances."

  "Gwynn, Safa, go quickly and find as many lights as you can."

  "There is no time!" Torque bellowed, his voice rumbling loud enough to echo through the ship. Gone was the friendly alien who would have been at home on a children's television show. Evie watched in surprised wonder as this unfamiliar being raised himself to full height, his eyes shifting from black to silver as they took in the room like a cornered animal.

  This was someone who had lost his family, lost everyone he had known. When they met him today he'd been relieved, grateful, but he was not immune to everything that had happened to him on board this same vessel they had now returned him to.

  "Do it," Oliver said. And once again the lights went out.

  At first there was the sound of thrashing near the stairs, followed by a low, soothing hum from Safa. If she was directing the noise at the female alien, startled by the sudden dark, there was probably little good it would do, but soon full silence fell.

  No one spoke despite there being no one else alive who could possibly hear them.

  Evie fumbled for a chair and found nothing, settling instead for resting some of her weight against the computer console near her hip, not trusting her feet to keep her steady on their own. The memory of the last time she had been on this bridge in the dark was still too fresh. How many hours had it been since she'd first woken up on the floor, everything she'd ever known about to change?

  Too many. She half-expected the captain's voice to come through soon, asking if they were all okay, a question she didn't want to face. Evie was alive, but she was not okay. How had things managed to get even worse than they'd been when they had just arrived in the void?

  Everything around them rumbled slightly and Evie braced herself to die.

  "What was that?" Gwynn asked, keeping her voice low. "If there was structural damage to this part of the ship, we're going to be in trouble, and fast."

  "I don't think so," Captain Briggs said, not sounding sure of his answer. And once again there was no way to speak to Lincoln and no way to get a sensor reading of what was happening to the ship.

 
"I believe," Torque said, sounding more himself, "that the other ship has officially attached itself to this one, somewhere nearby. They will come aboard now to search for whatever it was that brought them here to begin with. It is their way."

  No one responded, so the alien continued. "When we were first brought to this place, we only had minutes before the aliens were upon us. Perhaps we gave off so much power that they could see us clearly, perhaps they were the ones who brought us here. But their weapons had been designed to destroy us perfectly, carried on ships that were so small, so slow, compared to what I was used to."

  “They disabled our systems one by one, only firing traditional weapons once they learned where our vital components were. They destroyed our central life support system after only a few hours. We had smaller versions throughout our vessel, backups to backups. But each could only last so long, and there was never any time to do repairs. The attack never ceased. Some ships would go back to where they came from, but their replacements were already on their way. They had done this before, and they had all the time they needed. We could no longer defend ourselves."

  "Do you think, whoever they are, that they're native to this space? Or were they brought here like us? You called them the Hshazir," Safa said, still curious even as the dark closed in around them.

  "I do not know. We called them the Hshazir because to use the word means plague, sickness. They were our plague. When the raiding parties came, those of us still alive hid. Many more died, but mostly they were not concerned with killing the survivors, only with taking what could be valuable to them. The raid lasted days. I, we … we stayed in a bathroom the whole time, hoping that once the invaders left, all would be okay. It was not. Once the Hshazir had taken everything they wanted, that was when they truly let their weapons free, destroying what they could before they left. For fun, or to kill of any survivors, I do not know."