by R. E. Vega
Dayna trailed her finger over the exact spot in the sensor readings that were disturbing her. “Specifically, Captain, it says Ulan didn’t jump four hundred years into the future. He jumped four hundred years into the past.”
“So we make the modifications to the ship, and we go and get them. You know how to do it, so let’s just do it.” Brax grinned. “I’ll go look up some lottery numbers—”
“You weren’t listening to me.” Dayna pushed herself back from the console. “I could do it, I think. I could get the parts together to make a temporal device. We’d have to make a few stops, but I think I could get everything I needed.” She shook her head. “But we’d only be able to do it once. And we’d be stuck there with them if we did it, four hundred more years in the past.”
“So we bring extra supplies with us…supplies for another jump back into the future.” Brax shrugged. “It sounds easy enough to me. I don’t see what the problem is.”
“The problem is that the tech doesn’t work as well to make jumps into the future. It’s a lot more complicated. A lot more expensive. And…and…” She frowned, not wanting to continue.
“And what, Dayna?” Captain Arleth placed a hand on her shoulder.
“And it doesn’t exist yet. There’s no way for us to get it where we are now—when we are now—even if we wanted to.”
YUKI
She knew only two things about their current situation—first, that they were to blame for her current situation, and second, that she and Ulan needed to get out of here as soon as possible.
She wasn’t sure how far back they’d traveled, but every moment they spent here, she grew more and more uneasy.
That horrible screeching sound happened again, and she put her hands over her ears, trying to drown it out. Her instinct was to close her eyes, too, but every time she did the images began flashing behind her eyelids again, making her nauseated. What was happening to her?
“What is that?” she said when the sound faded away again. Was it something animal? Mechanical? But that didn’t make any sense—she knew that they wouldn’t be able to hear anything out there—sound didn’t travel in space the way it did in Castalia.
“I don’t know what it is,” Ulan said. “And I’m not sure I want to.”
She wasn’t sure she wanted to, either.
Ulan pulled their pod up to the side of the other ship, and her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t want to go onto that ship, even if it was their only chance. She’d almost rather die out here in space.
“Grab a suit,” Ulan said, standing.
She thought she might be sick. “Maybe…maybe one of us should stay here on the pod, just in case.”
He gave her a look. “You think I trust you not to fly off the moment I’m gone? No, thank you. You’re coming with me.”
“We might be walking into a trap,” she said. “Some of them are probably still alive—”
“And I’m a good shot with a blaster,” he said. “Either way, I’m pretty sure they would have attacked us by now if there was someone conscious on board.”
“Not if they want us alive.”
Ulan frowned at her. “I’d rather be alive and in the wrong hands than slowly dying of starvation in an escape pod. Unless you’re willing to offer yourself as food.”
She hoped that last part was a joke. “You don’t know these people. What they’ll do—”
“Listen, human—you’re the one who got us into this mess, which means that you don’t get to call the shots anymore. Accessing the technology on this ship is our only shot of getting out of here. And if I have to tie you up and carry you over there myself, I will. If we have to fight them, we have to fight them. It’s still better than whatever fate waits us on this pod. Now put on your suit.”
He was starting to scare her again. But she knew arguing with him would get her nowhere—even if she refused to leave the pod, she had no doubt he’d do exactly as he said and drag her out himself.
“You’re a bully, you know,” she told him. “Just like they told me A’lyph were.”
“Then I guess I just can’t help it,” he replied simply. “Must be in my nature.”
Her stomach tight, she grabbed one of the suits from the compartment at the back of the small vessel and started pulling it over her clothes.
This was a very, very bad idea. But she didn’t know what else to do.
One thing she did know, though—she’d die before she’d ever let them take her again.
ULAN
Ulan knew that entering the enemy ship would be dangerous, but as he’d told the girl, he didn’t see any other options. The Defiance certainly didn’t have the technology to jump back in time, which meant if he ever wanted to see his crewmates again, he’d have to be creative.
It was unfortunate that he had to bring Yuki along—this was risky enough without having her to slow him down—but he didn’t see any other option. He had no doubt she’d have flown away the moment he left the pod, leaving him stranded on this strange ship.
Humans.
The other ship was quiet. The force of the blast from Defiance appeared to have shorted out all of their systems—the artificial gravity wasn’t working, and neither was the atmosphere regulator. Unless any of them had had the foresight to suit up before attacking Defiance, they were probably all dead right now.
“Keep your suit on,” he told Yuki. The moment the words were out of his mouth, he wondered if he should have just let her die…but even he wasn’t that cruel and malicious. The girl might be stupid and annoying, but she didn’t deserve to die for that.
Slowly, he led her through the ship, floating down the passages with her close behind. Bits of the ship floated past—broken pieces of the vessel itself as well as various odds and ends like food and shoes and chairs.
The girl might think they’re monsters, but the evidence points to them being quite human.
Even though it seemed unlikely that any of them survived this, he kept himself on alert at all times. He didn’t want to risk anything. He considered pressing a hand against the wall and listening deeply to the ship, to try and detect any living beings or working machinery nearby, but his head still ached and the strange shivery feeling he’d been feeling all day still lingered in his arms and legs. He suspected if he tried to use any of his power, the result would be the same as it was the last time, and he couldn’t risk passing out, not right now.
So he had to rely on his normal senses to get them through.
It was slow going, moving through the ship. Having Yuki with him didn’t help, but it would have been an arduous task even without her there. He knew little of this vessel, and the floating debris made it difficult to go quickly. It might take them hours to find the bridge, and even then, he couldn’t be certain it would be intact enough for him to learn anything.
Still, he told himself again, you don’t have any other options.
He was pushing himself around a corner when Yuki suddenly made a sound behind him.
He stopped and twisted back around, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. “Is something wrong?”
She was facing away from him, looking back the way they’d come.
“I…I thought I heard something,” she said.
“Nonsense,” he replied. “My hearing is better than yours. If you’d heard something, I’d have heard it too.”
She didn’t look reassured, but she didn’t argue. They continued down the passage.
A short while later, though, Ulan started to get a strange feeling—not like the shivering his limbs, but rather more like a sense. Something was tickling at his awareness.
He stopped and twisted himself around again, looking back behind them once more. Yuki did the same.
“Do you hear it?” she said.
He desperately wished he trusted himself to use his extended senses. Something was there—he’d bet his life on it—but he couldn’t say what. Or even where it was. He saw nothing, heard nothing—there was only that strang
e sense.
“Come on,” he said to Yuki. “Let’s find the bridge.” The sooner, the better.
“You heard it, right?”
“No,” he told her. “I don’t hear anything.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie—he didn’t hear anything. But deep inside him, he knew the truth.
They were being followed.
KAYLIN
Kaylin wasn’t completely sure how to take the news. One the one hand, she’d recognized something was different about Dayna from the day she met her. She never had been able to quite put her finger on what it was, but she’d always known Dayna was somehow special.
But on the other hand, everything about this situation put Kaylin’s crew at risk. And now that Dayna was able to somehow shield herself from Kaylin’s new thought reading abilities, it made it all the more difficult to know what the best course of action was.
She removed her hand from Dayna’s shoulder, straightening herself. Regardless of why Dayna might have come on board her ship, the only real necessity now was getting Ulan and the girl back on board.
Kaylin tried one more time to read what Dayna was thinking, but it was no use. It was like trying to penetrate a steel wall—she couldn’t see a thing behind it, but she could definitely feel the energy Dayna was using to keep her guard up.
Of course, the best person to ask for recommendations in this situation would have been Ulan.
She shook off her doubts about the situation. “Suggestions, Jackson?”
“I have a suggestion, Captain. I suggest we lock her up and throw away the key. Or send her to wherever the hell she got Ulan to.” Brax seemed to think his brand of humor was necessary in these kinds of situations.
Kaylin threw a glare over her shoulder. “I’m looking for helpful suggestions, Locke. And if you can’t provide one, keep your mouth shut.”
“I could…I mean, I could try…” Dayna’s voice was much meeker than it normally was. Her strength and determination were just two of the things that had made Kaylin want her on board her ship in the first place. This new timidness was unlike her. Even the revelation that she was from far in the future shouldn’t have made Dayna suddenly submissive.
She turned to Locke, opening her mind to his to hear his thoughts.
What the hell is the blue and green? Fear? Damn, she could be the most putrid shade of brown, and I’d still want to—
Kaylin did her best to shut down the open line of communication between her and Brax’s brains before she had to hear any more about what he wanted to do with Dayna. Not that his thoughts about Dayna surprised her—it was more surprising that he hadn’t already slept with the navigations officer. He’d slept with pretty much every other woman in this quadrant of the galaxy.
But that didn’t matter now. Fear. That was what Dayna was feeling—it had to be what was causing this sudden, almost submissive behavior from her. Kaylin wished Dayna would just tell her what it was that was going on—it would make everything so much easier. Even if she’d just open her thoughts up the smallest bit, maybe Kaylin could help her.
But Dayna remained shielded, almost guarded. She muttered to herself as she continued adjusting the sensors.
“Dayna?” Kaylin risked taking another step toward her.
She paused, her fingers hovering over her keyboard. “Yes, Captain?”
Kaylin knew she had to proceed with caution. Whatever was going on, it was clearly causing Dayna to revert to some past fear state. Almost the same state they’d found their new passenger in when they’d picked her up that afternoon.
The captain let out a long breath. “How much do you know about the technology? The one that allows you to move forward in time instead of backward?”
“Some.” Dayna’s voice was low, so quiet Brax probably couldn’t hear her from where he sat at the back of the bridge. “But like I said, it won’t be invented for another three hundred years or so. It doesn’t matter how much I know.”
Kaylin took another cautious step toward her. “Are you sure it was invented three hundred years from now? Are you absolutely positive that no one might have worked on it before that?”
Dayna turned to face Kaylin, her brow furrowed. “That’s when the commercial use became available. I suppose someone probably worked on it before that.” She nodded slowly, a light beginning to gleam in her eyes. “Someone had to have worked on it before that, right?” A small smile came to her lips. “Maybe…maybe three hundred years before. That is what you’re asking, right?”
Kaylin’s shoulders dropped. She had no idea if this was the best course of action—or how much trouble it might get her into in the long run—but it seemed like their only option.
“No, no, no.” Brax walked down to join the women. “You can’t be serious, Captain. You saw what happened when you let her change the tactical display. And when she used that tracking device on me. She probably stole that, too. You can’t actually believe—”
“We have no way of knowing, though, do we? Dayna may very well have invented all those things. Including the device she needs to make a temporal jump forward in time.” Kaylin turned her attention to Dayna. “Do you think you can do it?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” She may have been stating her uncertainty, but Dayna no longer sounded like a meek rodent. “I mean, if I could find a few certain parts, I could probably do something really rudimentary. It wouldn’t be pretty—and it would probably hurt like a bitch when we make the leap back, but…but I think I might be able to do it. But it isn’t like I could test it. We’d only get one shot.” She nodded a few times. “I could go myself. I could build what I needed and take one of the shuttles. That way, if things go really wrong, it’s only me that would suffer. It’s my fault we’re in this mess—”
“Damn, finally you admit it’s your fault.” Brax rolled his eyes. “And I totally agree that she should go herself, Captain. She did get us into this mess. And she damn well should get us out. If she hadn’t—”
“Enough.” Kaylin interrupted with a wave of her hand before turning her attention back to Dayna. “Assuming you can get the parts, how long will it take you?”
She shook her head. “It’s getting the parts that will be the problem. We’ll have to go to Elyon for a thermal disruptor. I can probably use what we already have for the rest, but we really need a thermal disruptor. And I’ll need time to modify it…” She frowned, some of the fear creeping back into her expression. “I don’t think I could do it in less than a week once we get the parts. And that would be working all day and night.”
“What if Thad helped?” She risked a glance over at her communications officer. “And Brax?”
Dayna glared at Brax for a moment. “Brax doesn’t have the skills to add anything.” She huffed out a breath. “With Thad, we might be able to do it in five days. If I show him how to do a few other things, we might be able to do it in four. But Captain…it’s going to take us a week to get to Elyon. And once we get there, we’ll have to find someone willing to trade with us.” She rubbed at her temple. “And don’t you have some special…cargo to deliver? Elyon is a week in the opposite direction.”
“You’re right. We need to deliver our cargo first.” She couldn’t believe she was even contemplating giving up, but trying a rescue operation might not be the best idea. At least not right now.
“Captain…” Brax’s mouth fell open and he shook his head. “I…I object. I strongly object. You can’t just turn your back on a member of the crew. I mean…what if it was Thad? You’d really leave him in the dark ages so you could go deliver some politician who may…” He glanced at Dayna before turning back to the captain. “…Or may not make a difference?”
“I’m not sure we have any other alternatives, Locke.” The captain frowned, shifting her focus from Brax to Dayna. “Unless you have any other ideas?”
Dayna paused for only a moment. “Give me a shuttle. I’ll go to Elyon on my own and get the parts I need. As soon as I have something I think
will work, I’ll go back myself. I’ll—”
She never was able to finish the thought. The three fell to their knees, pressing their hands against their ears as hard as they could. Kaylin’s eyes squeezed shut after only a second, not that it helped to block the ear-piercing, head-splitting screeching that erupted from nowhere. She’d never heard anything like it. Kaylin could feel it—whatever it was—deep in her bones.
And it was only another moment before everything went black. Silent and black.
ULAN
He kept them moving swiftly through the corridors, but they couldn’t seem to shake whoever—or whatever—was following them.
He felt completely blind without access to his extended senses. More than once he paused, thinking it might be worth the pain to spend a moment expanding his awareness and giving them a few more details about whatever was behind them, but ultimately he decided it was better to keep moving. No matter what was back there, he still only had a single weapon at his disposal—and not a particularly powerful one at that. It was better to get to the bridge as soon as possible.
If only I had access to my virtue…then I’d feel much safer.
More than once, he glanced over at Yuki. She wasn’t doing a very good job at hiding her fear—but then again, he wasn’t sure why he was surprised by that, given his previous experiences with her. A girl like that had no business on a ship like Defiance, let alone on an incapacitated enemy vessel.
It’s her fault we’re here in the first place, he reminded himself. She’s just going to have to deal with it.
Yuki kept turning around, glancing behind them. He wondered how it was possible for her to hear whatever followed them, as she claimed. She was human, her senses were much duller than his, and he could barely hear whatever it was.
“Don’t keep looking behind us,” he told her finally. “You’re slowing us down.”
