Soul Song: A Witch & Shifter Romance

by Amos, Ashley

  Zana and Fanilgo nodded.

  “The crew of the Tennann have torpedoed themselves to the forefront of a brewing interplanetary minefield. Did you know that this Earth, the inhabited planet of the Sol system, has had previous contacts with extraterrestrial life before?”

  “Yes. It’s a relatively common thread among their pop cultural media and some of their fringe sciences,” Zana replied, speaking in a soft, measured tone that wouldn’t surrender the knowledge of her nerves. “They as a species have not established a widely accepted first contact however. In my personal research I began combing through their cultural relations to such… They have quite a colorful history of misinterpreting unorthodox and ancient contacts. They have an entire spiritual connection to a concept of ‘angels’ which when looked at through the eyes of someone with post-contact knowledge—”

  “Yes yes…” Fanilgo said, interrupting Zana. “New peoples uncontacted are often fascinating with their primitive, underdeveloped senses. But what does that have to do with either myself or Officer Darex Zana?”

  Leaning back, Benkof slowly gestured to Zana, as if a motion of his hand could explain it all. His respirator beeped and hissed, filtering more air for his specialized lungs. “She is the foremost expert on the Sol System’s inhabitants. Isn’t that correct, Zana?”

  Zana gawked, her markings taking on a purplish tone, her nausea and embarrassment running like racehorses in her mind. “I—”

  “Of course you are,” Benkof said. “No one has clocked more hours deciphering Sol System communications, both on and off the Federated Union’s clock, than you. You have singlehandedly provided enough lingual context for the Tennann to begin what has turned out to be a miserable excuse for an exploratory mission. Translators are already being outfitted with your work to better make sense of the Sol System’s inhabitants and their language.”

  “Languages,” Zana corrected him.

  “Yes, that’s all fine and dandy,” Finalgo said. “But she’s a linguist. She has a tie to this mess of a mission. Why am I here though, Sir?”

  “You?” Benkof asked, his grin hidden behind his whirring respirator. “You are my insurance policy that the Tennann does not continue its roguish ways. Officer Fanilgo, you are Puraw. Between your extensive physical mimicry abilities and military expertise is more than enough to keep Captain Seddi and her crew from straying from objective.”

  Both Zana and Fanilgo fell quiet.

  “It still makes so little sense to me,” Zana said. “There are plenty of other Communications officers who know my work and can work out the data. What makes me so special you could entrust a possible first contact to me?”

  Benkof blinked, his respirator whining faintly. “There are many, many people on this ship qualified for this mission. You are very much right on that front, Officer Darex Zana. But if not you, then who? And what if they were to counter my decision the way you have, with doubt and anxiety? Who do we move on from then? We here on the Azin will be monitoring the situation and keeping a whole plethora of communication’s channels open from here to the nearest communication’s base. In the meantime, shape up. You have been flung onto the cusp of history whether you’re thinking you’re deserving of it or not. The crew here, we will be making arrangements for the arrival of diplomats and smoothing out any potential first proper contact while you work aboard the Tennann. This mission, if you have not guessed yet, is less about maintaining an eye on ‘Earth’ and its inhabitants, and more about reining in the Tennan and Captain Seddi.”

  Fanilgo cleared his throat, rolled his shoulders, and stared the captain down. “I guess this is the part where you tell us exactly what it is they have done?”

  Zana blinked, amazed with the amount of demand and contention in Officer Fanilgo’s tone. She retreated into the little plush she could get from the chair.

  Benkof’s respirator hissed. He blinked and stood, turning to pace away from his desk and towards the dividing wall between the entry and his private quarters. “You must understand, this is not to leave this room. What Captain Seddi and her crew have done is highly… unethical; illegal in some cases.”

  Both Zana and Fanilgo remained silent, frozen, their eyes set only on Benkof’s broad, dark back. “Understood,” was their reply, said in unison.

  Benkof cleared his throat, respirator beeping and hissing. “Captain Seddi of the Exploratory Cruiser Tennann has abducted an Earthling.”

  Chapter Two: First Contact

  Standing together in the elevator, no attendant in sight, Zana and Fanilgo fell into a deep silence, only punctuated by the occasional clatter of Fanilgo’s scales as he shifted about. The lump in Zana’s throat kept her from ruminating on Fanilgo’s biology. She knew enough about the Puraw, their dense armor like scales glinting like bronze, their pangolin-like bodies being perfect for war. Their shapeshifting abilities were oftentimes, especially in older civilizations like the Darini home world, outlawed for the troubles they could cause.

  Zana couldn’t dwell. She kept the physical, paper files Captain Benkof had handed the two of them close to her chest. The picture of the human was enough to set her on edge. The fact that they were so worried about this mission leaking out over the communications channels, enough to use physical files instead of digital ones, it scared her. The business at hand was grave. Her circulatory organ jumped from her abdomen to her throat and she had trouble focusing, her chameleon markings flickering between a guarded and reserved rose gold to an anxious mess of lavender and mauves. Captain Benkof had ordered them to the deployment bay after filling them in on the intricacies of the situation, from the crew of the Tennann and their foolish mishaps, to the plan at hand. Zana could only fixate on the large photograph of the abductee. His hair was dark, as were his eyes, and though his features were vaguely mammalian, he was so cleanly devoid of hair save for the little patches above his eyes and the top of his head. Zana was fixated. His skin was like pale, lunar gold, his eyes like obsidian, looking out from thin, squinting eyes as if suspicious of her and everything she was bringing towards him. Benkof’s words rang in her head. The human’s name was Lee and he could put up one hell of a fight.

  The silence broke after a moment. “So, what is there to humans that have the Federated Union up in arms about a few policy breaches?” Fanilgo asked.

  Zana turned, staring at him. “They’re a relatively advanced, uncontacted people. They have a more varied and diverse civilization and history than every other monitored uncontacted peoples in the galaxy. They produce more communication at a per capita rate more impressive than even some Federated Union members.”

  “And?” Fanilgo asked. “Would that warrant abduction by the crew of the Tennann?”

  Zana froze. The elevator suddenly seemed cramped and she felt put on the spot, her hands coming up to grasp at her shoulders. The files pinned to her chest. She looked down, markings going dark. “I wouldn’t know. Does anything warrant abduction?”

  “At times,” Fanilgo said. Reaching out, he hit the pause button on the elevator and turned to Zana, his small, black eyes fixated on her. “Before my people joined the Federated Union, we had initiated contact with a wide swath of uncontacted peoples. It isn’t always best to play it by the book with new races and the like. You have a million or so different cultural shocks that need softening, sure, but some things can’t ever be met rationally with those species hell-bent on war or resource mining or philosophy or politics. These people of Earth? We have no idea how they could react. There could be widespread panic and paranoia. Maybe the Tennann was doing something right by breaking protocol.”

  Zana looked at the buttons on the elevator, wondering why they had stopped descending to the deployment bay for their formal debriefing. “Fanilgo…”

  “Do you really want to know why we were chosen above all the other accredited candidates for the liaison with the Tennann?” Fanilgo asked, crossing his arms, all his little scales rattling. “I can fight and subdue an enemy in a heartbeat and you ca
n communicate. Humans are likely a nightmare to handle and the Tennann needed backup.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Zana said, nearly scowling now. She slammed the resume button on the elevator and they were off towards their destination again. “There’s no need for that kind of talk. I’ve studied enough of the Sol System communications to know. Humans… they’re not like that. They don’t need to be coddled or quarantined. Nothing about them would or could ever warrant an abduction.”

  “You say that now…” Fanilgo muttered.

  The rest of their trip from the bridge to the deployment bay at the opposite end of the ship was silent. Zana was lost to her own thoughts, wondering what the crew of the Tennann had done so horribly to ‘warrant’ an abduction of a human. Everything in her work, in her research, in her cycles and breaks devoted solely to decoding and untangling human communications, all of it had told her that humans could be reasoned with. Contact didn’t need to be hard. It wasn’t as if humanity had the capability of posing a threat to the Federated Union or any other species. They hadn’t even cracked the secrets of faster than light speed travel. Zana couldn’t stop but ask herself what could have happened.

  Before she knew it, she was in the deployment bay, a half step behind Fanilgo and a million steps away from her common sense. She could trip over her thoughts and even her words, but Zana had to put on an air of professionalism as she and Fanilgo suited up in their dark flight suits and made their way to the shuttle that would carry them from the Azin down to the orbital plane and off to the Tennann. Taking her place in the seat on the right, she looked over to Fanilgo as he adjust the communicator on his forearm, his scales rustling. After a moment, he huffed and the scales all flattened and melded together, forming a dense, smooth skin.

  “Officer,” Zana said, nearly hissing as the shuttle was adjusted and moved on a tram towards the airlock. “You know that’s against regulation.”

  He scoffed. “Everything about what is going on is against regulation. We’re dealing with abduction, Darex Zana. There’s no going back from here.”

  She gulped. There was no response to something like that. Despite all her hopes and dreams about contacting the inhabitant of the Sol system, she wouldn’t, couldn’t really, ever prepare for the current scenario. Her own people, the amphibious Darini, they had enough extensive history, mythology at this point in their several millennia, of their first contact. Abduction was… unthinkable to her. Fanilgo might have thought it possibly excusable, but to her, here and now, she felt a tightness in her chest as if the waters of her home world had all crashed in on her at once. All she wanted, had hoped for really, on this entire journey was the ability to initiate a positive first contact with a new race, a new species. Perhaps it was selfish of her, she thought every now and then while working on decoding the Sol system transmissions that she could help be a positive influence on ushering a new people into their post-contact era. She held the files Captain Benkof gave her close, watching Fanilgo operate the ship. She was capable enough in her line of work to warrant her involvement, sure, but if there was a mess aboard the Tennann, then what? What would become of her work if humanity was hostile or even worse? What if the Federated Union of Interplanetary States isolated Earth and the Sol System? What if this was their civilized twilight and not a dawn for them? Zana looked down at the abductee’s picture again.

  “His name is Lee,” she said softly.

  Fanilgo scoffed. “What an odd name. And what an odd creature. You would think a mammalian sapient species would have more fur.”

  “I think he’s fascinating. I just want to talk to him…” Zana admitted as Fanilgo began activated the shuttle’s cloaking technologies and revved the engines, the airlock sealing around them and depressurizing. “He could be the key to his entire species future. What that must feel like…”

  “You Darini and your obsession with First Contact…” Fanilgo said, rolling his eyes. “Must be why you have the highest rates of inter-species relationships in the Union.”

  Zana huffed, her markings taking on a bright cherry hue of disdain. “If I didn’t know any better, I would say you’re being a judgmental prick about all of this.”

  “You would be right,” Fanilgo said, busying himself with a line of commands he typed into the shuttle’s control panels. The bay’s door began to open and the shuttle began it’s slow, steady crawl out into space. “My people have such little care for first contact because of how damned commonplace it is nowadays. But you? You and that Parad fellow and Cal…”

  “Onex Cal is not a Darini. Anyone with eyes can see that,” Zana said.

  Her rebuke was met with little more than a dismissive hand wave. “Regardless. You and your people have made a religion around new people’s and first contact. It makes no sense…”

  Zana stared at him, her various markings on her face and arms slowly turning to a color nearly identical to her rosy complexion. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  Fanilgo rolled his eyes, fell quiet, and pulled the shuttle out into space. Logging the coordinates of the Tennann into the shuttle’s logs, he leaned back, grabbed the controls, and began piloting them away from the behemoth that was the Expedition Cruiser Azin and off, into the inky black of the Sol System and down, down towards the orbital plane and towards the golden light of the star at its center. Zana reviewed the notes Captain Benkof had entrusted to her and nodded, flipping through the pages and trying not to stare at the admittedly attractive face of Lee the Human. Looking over the little information about the factors that lead up to the abduction, she sighed, turned to Fanilgo and handed him one of the pages from the file.

  “Exploratory Cruiser Tennann is currently based in the shadow of the inhabited planet’s moon, undetectable with various advanced cloaking technologies now standard on Exploratory Cruisers,” she said, reading the file for the sake of record keeping on the shuttle. “Their resources on board, from fuel to nutrition to life support, are well above average reserves, having only been within the Sol System for approximately fifteen cycles. The crew has remained silent as to the actions and factors that lead up to the impromptu abduction, and the only information collected has been from Captain Seddi. Suspicions have arisen that she is covering for her first officer, a recent transfer to the Exploratory fleet. Other rumors point to her smuggling uncontacted people into extra-Federated territory as high priced slaves.”

  “Noted,” Fanilgo said, double checking the shuttle’s readings as he coasted down towards the tiny blue dot that was their destination. “Readings are within range, approaching destination in t-minus… ten…”

  Zana tuned Fanilgo out. His words droned on as they zoomed closer and closer to the blue dot which swelled up, growing to a marble, a ball, a globe, a monolith of clouds and blue and green. Zana fell silent, watching the planet zoom by, Fanilgo helping steer them off to the pale silver orb in the distance.

  “Their primary communication language refers to their moon simply as The Moon,” Zana said. A little laugh escaped her. “Imagine that… how simple their culture can be in contrast to everything else about them.”

  “Right,” Fanilgo said, unbuckling from his seat and standing, the screen and windows of the shuttle slowly picking up on the various readings given off by the Tennann’s cloaking devices. “I need to check some technical jargon before we dock. Give me a moment and watch to make sure we open any hailing the Tennann gives us.”

  Zana nodded. “Got it.”

  She watched him disappear from the pilot’s cabin and then turned, focusing on maintaining course, her eyes on the files in her lap. Lee, the mystery human and subject of all the trouble she was facing, continued to stare at her with those accusatory eyes. She inhaled sharply, noting the hail from the Tennann and reciprocating automatically. As the communication links were established between the shuttle and the Exploratory Cruiser, Zana fixated on Lee the human once more. Curiosity ate at her. She could feel it gnaw at her mind, her aural fins slowly fluttering in annoyance
as she tried to pick apart what could have driven such an encounter into play like this, tracing over the contours of Lee’s photograph. Was this the First Contact him and his people would truly have? Would it be on her shoulders, the weight of that responsibility? Or would this all be a cover up? Would this Lee be taken away to the galactic center and paraded around like a dignitary just to cover the dirty, soiled tracks that Captain Seddi of the Tennann had left in the Sol system?

  She recalled her youth back home, among the Darini and their tales of their first contact. Having been one of the first species in the galaxy to reach out to extra-terrestrial life, what had happened several millennia before was now a mythology to her. She smiled, still petting Lee’s picture with the tip of one long, slender finger.

  Fanilgo returned, notably shifted into a more mammalian form, still cleary himself with dark, suspicious eyes, but smooth and significantly less noisy. Zana glared at him, but said nothing as the communication links with the Tennann were finalized. She watched him take the controls. On the screen, the black, inky surface of the dark of the moon wavered and the screen ignited, the view of the Tennann on display for them now. The ship was much smaller than the Azin, a simple Exploration Cruiser with a few dozen decks and only enough docking space for a small handful of shuttles. Faniglo pulled the shuttle closer still, the hail from earlier prompting the bay’s door to open, allowing them a smooth and painless entry.

  “You’re very good handling this ship,” Zana said, looking over to her fellow officer. “Is it—”

  “Part of basic security personnel training? Yes. It is,” Fanilgo said, locking onto the magnetized floor of the docking bay. Slowly but surely he had managed to coast the shuttle into the Tennann and beyond the airlock in what felt like mere seconds. “It’s nothing. Just probably another reason Benkof sent me instead of someone better equipped to handle this.”