by R. E. Vega
“No one on this ship did anything to your eyes, Miss. Now if you’d just accompany me to sickbay—”
She ducked beneath his arm and ran out into the corridor. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she had to get away. She wasn’t particularly strong or cunning, but she was small and fast—and that meant she was good at giving people the slip.
She didn’t wait to see if the A’lyph would follow. She ran down the corridor, taking turn after turn until she was thoroughly lost. Luck must have been on her side, because she didn’t run into any other members of the crew. And after a few minutes, she couldn’t hear the A’lyph pursuing her anymore, either.
Yuki knew she couldn’t push her luck forever. If she kept running, she’d eventually run into someone. So when she found herself next to a storeroom, she quickly ducked inside and hid behind some large crates. She pulled her knees up to her chest and waiting, trying to catch her breath.
But she didn’t close her eyes. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to close her eyes again.
BRAX
Brax still wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t dead.
Sure, his heart seemed to be beating. And as far as he could tell, he was still breathing. But there was a strange sort of stiffness about his body, and his head felt dizzy and light. He might be alive, but for better or worse, he felt like he shouldn’t be. Since he’d woken up, his vision had been a little hazy. Everything seemed to have a faint white mist about it.
Honestly, though, what did he expect? You nearly drowned earlier. And fought off a stegodrake. And have spent nearly half the day unconscious. It was no wonder he felt like he’d just been dragged behind the Defiance through an asteroid belt—and he really shouldn’t be surprised that his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He glanced over at Dayna. She was bent over her screens, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. As he watched, the faint white shimmer around her seemed to move and evolve. After a moment, it appeared to be more of a dark gold color with little wisps of purple and blue.
Brax shook his head, trying to clear his vision, then glanced over at Barner. The former vice president was over by the window, nervously pacing back and forth, and the shivering cloud around him was purple tinged with red.
This was all very odd.
Brax stood and hobbled over to Dayna. She didn’t even glance up at him.
“How are you doing?” he asked her quietly.
For a second, the edges of the cloud around her burned red, then faded back to gold.
“How do you think I’m doing?” she responded. “We were just attacked and none of this makes any sense.”
“But how are you feeling?”
She looked up, frowning. The purple wisps in the cloud around her intensified. “Not great. But I can’t imagine any of us are.”
“No, I suppose you’re right.” He tapped his fingers against the console. Even his own body seemed to be outlined in faint, dancing light—in his case, a bright yellow that was bluish-purple along the edges. Not exactly the colors he would have chosen for himself, but that was the least of his worries.
He couldn’t articulate exactly what he wanted to ask Dayna—he couldn’t bring himself to outright ask if she was seeing strange colors and lights around people and things—but they’d shared something, a moment in a dark place. He felt as if some of that strange darkness had followed him back from wherever they’d been. It was like a whisper in his ear, a tickle deep in his brain. He felt a strange, shivery sort of energy in his muscles, but when he flexed his arm or wiggled his fingers, everything seemed to function just fine. He could just see a weird aura around his body now.
You’re just imagining it, he told himself. How many times have you almost died today? This has to be a trick of your mind.
“I’m going to run down to sickbay and run a few scans on myself,” he told Dayna. “Just to make sure there aren’t any lingering effects from whatever happened.”
She was already looking at her screen again. “Probably a good idea. I’ve been telling you something’s wrong with your head for months now.”
On another day, he might have laughed at such a comment—even thrown back a little of his own banter. But a knot of worry had settled into his gut, and now he only had interest in getting to the bottom of this…this strangeness as soon as possible.
DAYNA
Unlike most times, the interruption from Brax had been a welcome one. Something was wrong—really wrong. Dayna knew herself well enough to know when she was sick, but that wasn’t it. Going to sickbay sounded like the best idea Brax’d had in a while.
“I’ll join you.” Dayna stood beside her console and nearly fell over.
Brax rushed to her side, helping her to stand upright. “You see them, too, don’t you?”
“See what?” There was definitely something wrong with her vision, but it wasn’t something she could put her finger on. Something was just…wrong.
“The colors.” He slid his arm around her waist, guiding her to the door of the bridge. “Yours are beautiful, by the way.”
“Colors?” That definitely was not what was wrong with her vision. She could still see colors, at least as far as she could tell, but everything—including color—was…different.
His arm dropped from where it had been around her waist. “You can’t see them?” Something about his expression changed, closing off. He was silent as they moved down the corridor to the sickbay.
“I…I’m not sure. I see…something.”
He nodded, something like relief spreading over his expression. He turned to her a moment later. “Maybe it’s some sort of superpower.”
“Maybe.” She tripped again as they crossed the threshold to go into the small medical bay. Brax reached out for her, but it was too late. Dayna fell flat on her face, right in front of the gurney.
Brax helped her to her feet without commenting on her lack of grace.
Weird. Almost as weird as what was going on with her vision—it had to be what was causing her to lose her balance doing something as simple as walking or standing.
Brax grabbed one of the medical scanners and handed it to Dayna. “You do me first.”
She lifted a brow, waiting for the usual follow-up commentary about the innuendo in his comment, but it never came.
Something was definitely different about Brax, but it couldn’t be the same thing that was different about her.
She pressed a few buttons on the scanner and aimed it at Brax’s head. She waited for it to read, trying not to look too closely at it—focusing on the details of something was what seemed to make her want to keel over. And she wasn’t sure she wasn’t hallucinating what was going on, anyway.
The scanner finally beeped and she looked at the screen for only a moment before she had to close her eyes, a wave of nausea overtaking her again. She stumbled against the bed, almost into Brax’s lap.
He caught her, helping her right herself before he took the scanner from her hand. He looked at it for a second. “There’s nothing here.” He looked down at his arm. “Did you see that?”
She shook head, holding herself up against the edge of the bed. She was far too close to Brax—so close she could smell him. Under normal circumstances, that would have been enough for her to want to run as far from him as possible, but now… Now there was something almost comforting in knowing he was going through something similar.
“It was orange.” He nodded. “I think orange might be fear. It only lasted a second, though, and now I’m back to blue.” He glanced her up and down for a moment. “You see it, too, don’t you? It made me sick at first, too, Dayna. But if you just let it be… If you just try to look at it as a new part of your normal vision…”
She felt almost out of breath—almost nauseous again. “I’m telling you, Brax, that isn’t it. Not for me. Mine is…different. I can’t…I don’t know…”
“Here…” He began running the scanner over her, frowning at the readout before the thing was
even finished. “Dayna…this can’t be right.”
“I know.” She closed her eyes again, leaning against the side of the gurney. She could have rested her head against Brax’s shoulder, she was so close to him. And that might have been comforting if it wasn’t also so…disgusting.
No, disgusting wasn’t the right word. Terrifying was closer.
“Your vision…it’s…it’s…”
“I know. I can see things, Brax. Not the colors you’re talking about. But if I look at something…” She shook her head. “I mean, if I focus on it—on anything—for any length of time, it’s like I can see inside it.”
“According to this scanner, you can also see almost microscopic detail.”
She opened her eyes, blinking at him. She didn’t want to look too hard at him—things seemed to become overwhelming when she focused too closely—but she hadn’t noticed that.
“Can you?”
“Can I what?” The area behind her eyes was beginning to throb. At least they were in the medical bay. She was pretty sure if the captain knew what was happening to her, she wouldn’t mind if she gave herself a shot of something to numb the pain.
“Can you see microscopic detail like that?” His brow furrowed as he looked at her. “I thought maybe you were seeing the same thing I was, but yours is so much more awesome.”
“It’s not awesome. It’s…nauseating.”
“And terrifying. Your purple…it turned into more of an orange. Just like mine before, but yours—”
“I don’t like this. You have some ability now to see…what? People’s emotions?”
He nodded. “I think so. Your orange flashed to red when you said it just now.” He grinned. “Oh, and now that red is creeping around the edges again as I’m talking. Goddamn, Dayna. I thought you were gorgeous before. This adds a whole new dimension.”
“You’re ridiculous. But at least whatever they did to you has some sort of value. What the hell am I supposed to do? Sit in here and puke all day? Because seriously, if I look too hard at anything, I can see…” She shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Tell me.”
She glanced down at his foot, which was still bleeding. She didn’t look too hard or too long, though, knowing it was only going to cause her to see first the structure of the cells, and if she focused her vision hard enough, she could see all the way down to the vibration of the electrons inside each atom that made up those tiny structures.
Instead of answering him, she walked over to the cupboard and pulled out some bandaging supplies. If she didn’t think too hard or too long—and definitely if she didn’t let her gaze rest on him or anything else too long—she didn’t feel too sick to her stomach. It seemed to only overtake her if she let her vision do the weird new thing.
“I told you mine, Dayna. It’s only fair that you tell me yours.” He grinned at her. “And if you have x-ray vision, I cannot tell you how amazing that is. And how jealous I am that you do.” He glanced at his arm. “Huh. Jealousy really is a shade of green.” He looked back up at her. “You really can’t see that?”
“No.” She knelt in front of him with the bandaging supplies in her hand. “I’m going to try to get the bleeding to stop—”
She didn’t want to, but something made her look at the wound on his foot in that way as he was talking. It was definitely beginning to heal, but she could see the damage to his cells—to the nerves under his skin. She still couldn’t control her new ability very well, and the nauseous feeling overwhelmed her again for a moment. She braced herself against the end of the bed, resting her head against Brax’s knee.
He stroked her hair. “It’s going to be okay, Dayna. I…I know you’re scared. I think—”
She lifted her head, her nausea gone as something more like anger took its place. “Just because you can somehow now sense what I’m feeling, it doesn’t make you…empathetic, Brax. You’re still the same jerk that you’ve always been.”
His smile widened. “Fair enough. Though, I must say I think this is going to give me an almost unfair advantage where it matters most.” He looked her up and down. “If you know what I mean.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re still a jerk.” She stood up, walking back over to the supply cabinet and grabbing a couple of instruments. “I can’t believe I’m even willing to help you.”
“God, you are a terrible liar, Dayna. You want me to believe you hate my guts, but your colors…” He chuckled. “Whatever this aura thing is, it’s pretty fucking great. You can say whatever you want, but I can tell what you’re really feeling. And what you’re really feeling is—”
She held up the laser scalpel like a weapon and he stopped talking. “If you can tell what I’m really feeling, you’ll shut the fuck up. Don’t think I won’t use this in a place that would make you very sorry.”
He raised his hands, almost as though he was surrendering. “I was kidding. And you don’t know how to use that thing, Dayna. The captain—”
“Do you trust me?”
His brow furrowed and he looked her up and down for a moment. She was sure he was trying to read her aura—or whatever the hell it was he was able to do with his new visual power.
He finally nodded and she walked back over to him, kneeling in front of him again with the instruments in her hand. “Hold still.”
“Dayna, I—”
“Just hold still, Brax. I can finish fixing your foot, but you have to hold still for me to do it.”
“I don’t think the laser scalpel is going to—”
He stopped talking as she numbed the nerve in his foot with the anesthetic. She wasn’t sure how she knew what to do, but she somehow just…did. Dayna first adjusted the tools to their most focused settings—the ones that would have been used with the fancy electron microscopes they used in the best hospitals on Earth, settings that had probably never been used on board any ship in the galaxy. Captain Arleth had never spared any expense on medical tools—probably because of her prior training as physician—but the tools they had on board were rarely used for their intended purposes. Until now.
She focused on the wound, allowing her vision to go as far as she was able, which she didn’t really want to acknowledge was probably now better than those same fancy electron microscopes. The wave of nausea overtook her for a moment, but she let it wash over her this time instead of trying to fight it, and she found it subsided a second later. She looked at his wound—really looked at it—and used the laser scalpel to cut around each individual damaged cell. She could see the ones that had already begun to heal themselves and left those, cutting away only those that had been so badly damaged by his blaster burn that there was no hope of repair. She was also able to repair the damaged blood vessels and nerves in his foot the same way, aiming the regeneration tool at the individual cells.
It took her several minutes, but she finished, finally standing up to put the tools away.
Brax’s mouth hung open and he watched her walk to the counter. “Dayna, that was…amazing.”
She let out a long breath before turning to him. “I don’t like this.”
“Like what? That you have a fucking awesome superpower now?”
“Well, it’s not one I would have chosen for myself.” She finished putting away the supplies and walked back over to Brax, placing a small bandage on his foot. “But I do think your foot will be fine now.”
He hopped off the table. “You think I would have chosen mine? You think I would have actually chosen to be able to see people’s…feelings?”
She shrugged, motioning him to the door. “I don’t know. Like you said, it gives you an almost unfair advantage with the ladies.”
“Hmm.” There was something strange in his expression, but he didn’t tell her what he was thinking. “I suppose we should write up our reports like the captain asked. You want to join me in the commons, and we can do ours together?”
She lifted a brow, waiting for the next nasty comment or inappropriate sugg
estion from him, but it never came. “Fine.” She tilted her head, looking at him again, though not too closely. “Brax?”
“Yeah?” He smiled as they began walking toward the commons area together.
“If we have these weird…superpowers, do you think everyone else does, too?”
His mouth fell open for a moment before he snapped it closed. “I hadn’t really thought about it until just now. But I suppose they might.”
ULAN
The captain was never going to forgive him if she found out he’d lost their passenger. They had enough complications on this ship already.
He grumbled to himself as he hurried down the corridor. Every once in a while he’d stop and listen, but he was having a difficult time concentrating. The tingling along his skin was growing more and more distracting. It didn’t hurt, exactly—if anything, it was more of a tickle—but it was everywhere. His legs, his arms, and even his scalp prickled.
Whatever they did to us in that place, it has some rather annoying side effects. He knew it could have been far worse—for all he knew, it was far worse and they had yet to experience the true effects of what had happened to them—but in the meantime, he just found it frustrating.
And playing hide-and-seek with some human girl wasn’t improving his mood.
The tingling had progressed to full-blown itching, but scratching didn’t seem to help. He cursed and shook his head. He should probably go tell the captain about this. If he was experiencing such odd side effects, perhaps the others were, too—or soon would be. Then he’d go to the sickbay and see if he could find anything to relieve this incessant tingling.
First, though, he had to find the girl. Captain Arleth probably wouldn’t have much patience to spare on a day like this.
He stopped at the next intersection of corridors and listened. He could hear the hum of the ship’s engines, and somewhere in the distance he was aware of the murmur of voices—but he could tell the girl’s wasn’t among them. When his hearing didn’t pick up any clues, he pressed his hand against the wall and tried to sense heat signatures instead.
