The Vilka’s Secret_A Shifters of Kladuu Short Story

by Pearl Foxx

  A bright white and blinding blue sheen highlighted one edge of the wormhole, and the rest was pitch black and merged into the planet’s atmosphere. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever imagined.

  Her wormhole.

  Maeve pounded on the armrests of her pilot’s chair, her face aching from her delirious smile. She let out a hoot of triumph.

  Moment of celebration over, she got down to the task of readjusting her sensors to consider two dimensions. The ship’s computer gathered data on the gravitational field and automatically adjusted to keep her out of range of the wormhole’s dangerous channel. She captured pictures and infrared imaging, all the while knowing that she was the first ever in human history to document a wormhole in actual space. No theories. No numbers. No equations deduced on a chalkboard. This was real life. This was—

  Deep within the black, something shimmered like a reflection on an oil slick.

  “What the hell?” she muttered, her data collection temporarily forgotten.

  She tried to override the autopilot again, but the ship refused. Before she could overthink it, Maeve turned off the autopilot and took the steering column in hand. She inched the ship closer to the shimmering edge. The ship shuddered, sending Maeve rocking against her harness. Across the screen, green words read, Structural Integrity Threatened.

  The gravitational pull of the wormhole’s edge tugged her off course slightly, but Maeve jerked the ship back into alignment, overcorrecting only slightly and causing the ship to dip port side.

  That shimmer inside the wormhole looked familiar. She couldn’t leave without one more piece of data. The closer she got to the wormhole’s opening, the more focused the other side became. She gasped. The channel was far shorter than she could have predicted. It was barely the length of the flight deck back on the station.

  And she could make out a shape. The shape of another ship.

  Was someone in trouble? A Falconer perhaps on a practice run before their flight test? They were inside the wormhole.

  “¡No mames!”

  Maeve hit the speaker on her comm to hail the distressed vessel, but a blast of static filled her cabin. She was no Jude Quincy, but maybe she could get close enough to get the radio to work. She could call the command tower for help.

  “Command,” she tried again, speaking through the static. “This is—”

  Her ship swerved to the side. The nav system flashed red. Structural Integrity Compromised, Maeve read as the lights dimmed. Red warning lights flashed all around her, filling the cabin as she felt the ship lurch in the other direction. The movement slammed her torso against the harness, her shoulders and stomach taking the brunt of the force.

  She fought for control of the steering column as it bucked against her grip.

  Cold dread inched through her bones. She was too terrified to scream.

  The ship swerved. She grabbed the edge of the dash and held on, completely letting go of the controls. With her free hand, she hit the comm’s speaker.

  “Help!” she shouted, her voice cracking with fear. “This is M-Maeve Delgado. I’m going down! Someone help! Please!” Her throat thickened with tears. “Please—”

  The ship twisted wing over wing into the wormhole. She saw a flash of white along the edge before the force slammed her hard against the straps. Her head smacked against the headrest, and a scream choked off in her throat.

  The shimmering edge of her wormhole was the last thing she saw before everything went black.

  2

  Noaz

  Noaz observed the tiny human ship as it bounced around in the opening of the wormhole. Another human careening to their death. He’d seen it happen before. The gravitational pull of the wormhole entrance wasn’t something just anyone could maneuver through; it required a skill none of these human scavengers were capable of.

  Such a primitive race, he thought as he scanned for the inevitable distress signal. He’d jam the frequency and wait until the ship was torn apart before moving on to the next spot on his patrol of Kladian space.

  He switched on the open comm, listening to the emptiness of space until a voice called out for help.

  Help! This is M-Maeve Delgado. I’m going down! Someone help! Please!

  Noaz leaned forward. A woman? This wasn’t the usual military transmission of the Falconer Elites, and the voice wasn’t that of a trained pilot. It was filled with a kind of panic that he hadn’t expected. Not to mention the voice was female. Women, as far as he knew, didn’t fly Falconer ships. He’d always assumed the prejudice was just another example of human inferiority.

  He jammed the transmission, ensuring it would never reach their space station. Instead of sitting back and waiting for the fireworks of the crashing ship, he maneuvered closer and played the transmission again over the comm speakers.

  The female pilot screamed and then silence.

  Was she dead already? All too easily, he imagined someone unconscious, bouncing around in their ship’s cabin, unaware of what was happening. He shouldn’t care, but that scream …

  It bothered him.

  She was the first female he’d heard out here, and he’d been out here a long time on patrol. Three years, to be exact.

  She could already be dead.

  He maneuvered his ship closer, avoiding the discordant threads of energy that bound the wormhole’s channel and kept the portal from collapsing into a supermassive black hole. The energy threads could flare at any moment, causing the channel to contract or pulse. Even brushing against one filament would be certain death. But he’d navigated this wormhole countless times before, and he knew it better than anyone.

  He let out a breath once he’d almost reached the other side. Her ship tilted to the side, beginning a spin toward the unstable edge of the opening. He paused, his hand on the controls.

  Just let her die. This wasn’t his business. Humans got what they deserved when they came this far out into space to pillage planets for their resources.

  He listened to the message again.

  Was he so lonely that merely a female’s voice would make him compromise his orders and his planet’s safety?

  Apparently so.

  He slipped his patrol ship through the wormhole’s nexus and entered the human side of space. Warning signals blared and blue lights flashed on the control dash.

  Noaz lurched to the side as the edge threatened to pull him into its lure, but he’d done this before, more than once, when a ship had to be destroyed or risk exposing his people. Humans couldn’t be allowed to discover the precious relics on Kladuu.

  The relics that allowed its inhabitants to shape-shift into various animal forms.

  Instinctively, his Vilkan nature reacted to the fear in the female’s voice, and all Noaz could think was protect.

  Noaz hit the controls for his ship’s retrieval arm. It whirred from deep beneath his cargo hold.

  “Cargo in decompression, Corporal Noaz,” his ship’s AI chimed through the ship’s speakers.

  “Stop decompression.” Even as he issued the instruction, his ears popped.

  “The interior’s atmosphere is unstable—”

  “Did I ask about the interior? Stop decompression. We’re just going to open the exterior door in a second, and we need to conserve fuel.”

  “Fine by me. I’m just an AI who doesn’t need to breathe. It’s your funeral.”

  He regretted training his AI to talk back to him just so he’d have someone to argue with while he was up here patrolling.

  At the base of his windshield, the arm extended toward the Earthen ship. He’d grab her and pull her back through the wormhole with him. When it was safe, he’d retract her ship into his cargo bay. He’d never done this before, much less guided another ship through the perilous energy threads.

  He had to hurry before one of the unstable threads decided to flare.

  The arm latched onto her ship’s nose with a magnetic jolt that rattled down the lever and into Noaz’s ship.

  �
��Connection secure,” the AI informed him. Rather haughtily, he thought.

  He grunted in acknowledgment. With tedious care, he reversed his ship, eyes locked on the lever’s hold on her ship.

  Halfway through the two-dimensional nexus, the Earthen ship dipped toward the edge.

  “Connection less than secure. Re-establish connection.”

  “Do it.”

  “Say please.”

  A thread of wild energy lashed across the female’s ship, singeing the metal and melting parts of the windshield and hatch.

  “Blessed Avilku, do it!” he shouted.

  The female had to be boiling in there. His Vilkan instincts reacted to her peril. Before he knew it, he’d partially shifted, his canines elongating and his nails sharpening into claws. His senses sharpened, heightened. All in response to some human woman he’d never even met.

  “Connection re-established.”

  Noaz redoubled his efforts. He increased his ship’s reversal speed and sent up a simple prayer to Avilku that he didn’t kill this female while trying to save her.

  Suddenly, her ship’s tail passed through the wormhole’s edge, and they drifted into open Kladian space.

  “Retract the arm,” he commanded the AI. “Activate auto-stabilizers. I’m going to the hold.”

  “Recompression will need 9.4 seconds upon the foreign ship’s entrance.”

  “Just hurry.”

  “No need to get nasty, Corporal.”

  He rolled his eyes as he spun his chair around and strode from the cabin. At the hatch to his sub-deck hold, he grabbed a mask from beside the door and strapped it to his face. Clear Hylan glass descended over the front of his mouth and nose, deploying oxygen into his system.

  He latched on the retaining belt and locked into the retrieval cable before hitting the airlock door and stepping into the cargo hold. The airlock closed behind him with a suction of air. The exterior bay door opened, and Noaz’s feet left the ground, his belt keeping him from being pulled into space from the vacuum created. Mechanisms whirring and vibrating, the retrieval arm brought the Earthen ship into position. When the exterior bay door clanged home and his feet were back on the ship’s deck, the vents began recompression.

  Wasting no more time, he reached the ship’s hull, feeling the residual heat from the flare sear his skin. He tore through the human ship’s flimsy metal with his claws, creating an opening for his large body as his ship finished recompression and the cargo hold’s atmosphere returned to a breathable standard.

  Noaz unleashed from the retaining belt and hit the button on his mask to withdraw the glass so he could see into the dim interior of the small ship. Ducking, he climbed into the cockpit. Inside, a barely conscious woman with dark hair and blood caked on the side of her face blinked up at him, her long lashes fluttering against her pale cheeks. She groaned.

  For a moment, he couldn’t move, stunned by her beauty and the richness of her feminine scent wafting off her delicate skin.

  He’d definitely lost his mind.

  The obvious relief at his presence flooded her gold-flecked brown eyes with tears. “My data,” she muttered. “Make sure …”

  As her words trailed off and she went limp in her chair, he forced himself to move. He reached for the straps of her harness as her eyes dipped closed. She fought against unconsciousness. How was she awake at all? Hopefully, she remembered nothing of her trip through the wormhole. If she did …

  He didn’t want to consider what that would mean. He’d killed plenty of humans for less.

  Unfathomably, her eyes opened again. “The data …”

  He released her chest strap and reached for her shoulder restraints. “Your data is fine,” he assured her just to keep her calm. But as his hand passed close to her cheek, her eyes widened, locked on the long claws. She aimed her all-too-knowing eyes on his, and he cursed, which only revealed his elongated Vilkan canines.

  “What the hell?” Fear flashed across her gaze. She brought her hands up to fight him off, but they fell back onto her lap, her head lolling to the side as she lost consciousness again.

  He lifted her as gently as he could and maneuvered his way out of the cramped ship. All sorts of thoughts ran through his mind, the most predominant one being that she was alive. Apparently, that mattered more to his animal half too, because right then, he didn’t care how many laws he’d broken.

  He just wanted to hear her speak, this time without fear, in person.

  His name preferably.

  He shook his head, dislodging the ridiculous daydream. What was wrong with him? After he untangled himself from this mess, he needed to apply for some leave time so he could get laid by a hot Vilka back on Kladuu.

  “Open the cargo door,” he told the AI since his arms were full of delicate, soft-skinned female. She smelled of ship exhaust and something sweeter, something he imagined would taste divine if he licked her skin.

  “I’ve always wanted a pet,” the AI said. The door remained shut.

  “Don’t make me reprogram you,” he threatened.

  The door slid open with a whoosh. Scowling, he carried the female into the central space of his patrol ship.

  “Forgive me if I don’t know the protocols for bringing aboard a prisoner, but shall I alert your Beta?”

  “Not yet,” Noaz barked. “I’m going to question her first.”

  “Of course. Might I suggest you look human for the interrogation, then?”

  Growling, he shifted completely to his human form as they walked, hiding his Vilkan features. His AI had a good point, and he didn’t want to startle the female—another ridiculous thought. He should scare her, throw her out the airlock, let the open space freeze her and crush her into space dust.

  He should fix this mess before it got further out of hand.

  Instead, he gently sat her down on one of the benches in the main hold and looked around. How the fuck was he going to explain this to his Beta? This kind of thing lost soldiers their rank, if not their position in the clan. This kind of thing could get him exiled.

  3

  Maeve

  Pain lanced through Maeve’s temples, jerking her from the hazy depths of unconsciousness. She groaned and pressed her hand against her head, where there was a sizeable, concerning lump. “Ow.”

  “It doesn’t smell serious,” a man reassured her, keeping his distance.

  “Smell?” She squinted up at the lights shining down from the ship’s roof to make out the blurry outline of her rescuer.

  “It’s just a cut.”

  Her eyes opened wider as they adjusted to the lighting. Even without her glasses, she made out enough of the man standing in front of her.

  Her breath evaporated. He was handsome, with a strong jaw, dark stubble, and a heavy brow framing those glacier blue eyes that she imagined could turn predatory in a flash. But instead of violence in them, she saw uneasiness. Perhaps even sadness. She wanted to ask what was wrong, run her hands through his shoulder-length, dirty blond hair, and kiss his eyes until they sparkled. But that was nonsense. How hard had she hit her head?

  He was hot as hell for a white knight in shining armor who’d saved her ass from crashing into the wormhole.

  Her wormhole. Thoughts of his deliciousness evaporated as she asked in a spill of words, “Is the ship okay? The system wasn’t fried, was it? I need to check on my data. It all has to be there because I’m not taking any shit about bias in my data—”

  She tried to stand, but the deck of the ship tilted up to meet her. The man grabbed her arm before she face-planted and helped her back onto the bench.

  “Your ship is in the cargo hold downstairs. The system looked fine when I pulled you in.”

  He raked a hand through his hair to shove it away from his face. As he moved, his shoulders and chest pressed against the tight material of his uniform, which glinted like silk beneath the ship’s lights. His hips were tapered, and the uniform hung looser down his legs, but not loose enough that Maeve couldn’t make
out his bulging thigh muscles. She’d never seen a uniform like this back on the station, and if she had, she was pretty certain she would have remembered it.

  Realizing she’d been totally checking him out, she jerked her focus back up to his face. He smirked at her. Heat swarmed across her cheeks to the tips of her ears and down the back of her neck. “So, ah,” she fumbled. “You were the ship inside the wormhole?”

  His cocky expression from catching her staring at him faded, and he took his time answering as if he had to think about it. “I pulled you through before you hit the edge.”

  Maeve blinked. “Through? As in, through it?”

  “Yes.”

  Laughing a bit too loudly as if he’d said something funny, Maeve bounced the sole of her right boot against the decking, her shoelaces making an incessant whooshing noise. “We’re not on the other side of it, are we?”

  He didn’t join in her laughter. If anything, he grew even more still, watching her, his eyes shadowed beneath lowered brows.

  When he didn’t answer, she decided it was a ridiculous question anyway. Of course, they were on the same side. No one had ever seen a wormhole before. A ship wouldn’t just fly through it for a good time.

  “Whew. Well, thanks for saving me. I guess technically I wasn’t the first to find a wormhole in space since you were, you know, already inside it. But we can share the credit, right? That would be really cool. How did you find it anyway? Are you a Falconer? I thought I knew all of them. I like to watch them taking off from the flight deck sometimes after a long night in my lab. What’s your name, anyway? I don’t think …”

  She tended to unspool words from her mouth in a stream of consciousness when she got nervous, and she was certainly growing nervous now. Her words trailing off, she glanced around, noting the ship’s interior. The glowing blue filaments provided soft, cool lighting above their heads with no discernible wiring to provide power. She brought a fingernail to her mouth and chewed on the edge as she took in the white material of the curved wall. It was a metal alloy, but she didn’t recognize it offhand. Beneath her jigging boot, the hum of the nearly silent engines running his ship was so unlike the raucous reactors of the ones at the station.