Soul of Defiance

by R. E. Vega

  “Get her to sickbay,” the captain said. “Get her stabilized as best you can and return her as soon as you’re able.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Brax lifted Dayna in his arms, and she groaned again. Her body was limp, and blood still trickled from her ears.

  This isn’t good at all. I knew something was wrong with her… If she’d just told us everything from the beginning, she might not be in this mess. And we… well, I guess there’s no guarantee that we wouldn’t have come across a giant space beast, but certainly most of our problems today would have ceased to exist.

  He carried her through the corridors, wondering how many more disasters had to happen before he could declare this the worst day in the history of time. He was so exhausted his entire body ached, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything to eat, and these auras he continued to see were making him dizzy. Dayna’s was currently a sickly greenish-brown color. It didn’t suit her. At least he was starting to get used to the dull ache in his foot—it was like an old friend now.

  She moaned again and shifted slightly in his arms. Her eyes flickered open, and when she saw him, she cursed and pushed weakly against his chest.

  “Put me down,” she demanded. “I told you if you ever touched me again I’d—”

  “I’m following the captain’s orders and taking you to the sickbay,” he said. “If you have a problem, you take it up with her.”

  “I don’t need to go to the sickbay. Take me back to the bridge. I—”

  “If I take you back there, I think the chances are high that you’ll die,” he said. “I hate to be blunt, but that’s the truth of it. You can’t even stand. If you keep pushing yourself, fighting this—”

  “You make me sound weak,” she said. “I’m not—”

  “You’re too weak to carry yourself to the sickbay, which means you’re too weak to be on the bridge right now. It won’t do any of us any good if you—YEOOOWWWWW!” He screeched and nearly dropped her as sharp pain shot across his chest. Dayna had grabbed one of his nipples through his shirt and twisted it with all her might.

  “Put. Me. Down,” she demanded again.

  He started to argue, but she grabbed his other nipple and did the same, twisting it until stars flashed across his vision.

  “YAAAAA—all right, all right. I’ll put you down.”

  Gingerly, with great care for his extremely tender nipples, he lowered her onto her feet.

  Where she almost immediately fell again.

  He caught her before her knees hit the floor, and she started cursing again as he slid his arm around her waist, trying to stabilize her.

  “Don’t be an idiot, Dayna,” he told her. “Let’s get you to the sickbay.”

  “They need me back on the bridge—”

  “We need you alive and able to stand. You know I’m right.”

  “And you know I’ll never admit that.”

  In spite of himself, he smiled. “If you prefer to try and walk, I’ll help you there. But you’re going to the sickbay, even if I have to tie you up and throw you over my shoulder and—”

  “Stop enjoying this so much.” She let out a sigh. “Fine. Help me there.”

  She put her arm over his shoulder, and he tightened his grip on her waist, and together the two of them started again toward the sickbay.

  “Do you think that thing will attack us?” he asked after a moment.

  “If it sees us as a threat, maybe. Or as food.” She looked up at him. “X-ray vision doesn’t tell me anyone’s intentions. But your power, on the other hand, just might. What color was that creature’s aura?”

  “Blue,” he told her. “But a purple sort of blue, not a calm blue. I’m not sure what it means.”

  “Blue doesn’t sound bad.”

  “No, but if aura-reading is a science, it’s one I haven’t mastered yet. After everything that’s happened today, I’m not sure I trust anyone or anything, no matter what color their aura is.”

  “Probably wise.”

  He looked down at her. Pressed against her like this, he was hyperaware of the soft, muscular curves of her body, and of the absolutely intoxicating way she smelled. Her aura had settled back into slightly less sickly hues, but it couldn’t seem to decide on a single color.

  She knows I don’t trust her. And she’s not even trying to argue that I should.

  Still, in spite of his feelings about her role in the day’s misadventures—in his mind, she was almost entirely at fault for most of it—he felt a certainly loyalty to her. Maybe it was simply the fact that they’d spent four years as crewmates, having each other’s backs…or maybe it was the fact that he had a hard time holding beautiful women’s crimes against them. If anything, knowing a woman had a dark, secretive side made her even more attractive. Hell, if Sarai had suddenly appeared and begged to suck his dick, he’d have had a hard time resisting—

  The ship suddenly jolted around them, and he stumbled, nearly taking Dayna down with him. He braced himself, trying to keep Dayna upright while reaching for his blaster gun—not that it could do much in this situation—but after a second or two, the shaking simply stopped.

  He straightened. “What was that, do you think?”

  “If you took me back to the bridge, we could—”

  “You’ll fall over the moment I let go of you. No, you’re still going to the sickbay. The captain and Thad can handle themselves until I get back.”

  He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. Maybe she was finally accepting how bad her condition was.

  “Tell me,” he said quietly. “Do you honestly think Ulan and that girl will be all right? That we have enough time to get to them?”

  She was quiet for too long. “I…Ulan’s smart. I have every confidence he could survive for a week anywhere in the universe.”

  “…but?”

  “But there are a lot of unknowns in this situation. We have no idea what his condition is after that jump. Or, if he is alive and well, if he understands what’s happened to him—he might think we left him and be lightyears away from our current position by the time we’re able to make the shift ourselves. And we have no idea who or what he might encounter in the past.”

  “So…he’s fucked.”

  “No more fucked than we are.”

  “That’s so reassuring.”

  They finally reached the sickbay, and Brax helped her onto the bed. As he hooked her up to the scanner, he felt her watching him.

  “What?” he asked her.

  “Nothing, I just…”

  He looked away from the scanner. He’d known Dayna long enough to read her moods, even without the assistance of his new aura-reading power. It was rare to see her like this—looking almost dejected.

  “You think this is it, don’t you?” he said quietly. “You think we’re all about to die.”

  “No.” She shook her head, then met his gaze. “But I think sometimes there are days in our lives that change everything. Days that mark a turning point—days from which point on you can never go back. The day I escaped those purple-eyed freaks, for example. Or the day I joined this crew.”

  “You think today is one of those days?”

  She gave a wry smile. “Don’t you? Can’t you feel it? Everything’s going to be different from now on. And we can’t stop it or change it.”

  Is this an invitation to… Is she coming onto me? An odd way to do it, but Dayna would never come right out and say she wanted him, even though it was incredibly obvious. But her aura didn’t show the same signs of arousal that it did earlier—if anything, it looked sad. It was turning a grayish sort of blue.

  “We can always change things,” he said. “If not, then what’s the point of living? It’s my personal philosophy to never let life make decisions for me. I prefer to grab it by the balls and make my own adventures.”

  He said it to lighten the mood, but Dayna didn’t look particularly amused. Instead, she suddenly reached out and grabbed his hand.

&nb
sp; “Brax,” she said. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  KAYLIN

  Thad took the seat at his station, punching a few buttons. Without a word, Kaylin took the console next to his, the one where Dayna usually sat, and began scanning the object hovering just outside their ship.

  What the hell do you think it is? Thad was speaking to her via their strange extrasensory perception again.

  “Don’t. Right now, if we could just try to keep things as normal as possible…” Kaylin tried scanning the thing again, trying to find any extra information she could. She nodded in the direction of the object without taking her attention from her monitor. “Why don’t you direct it out there? Try to see if you can read what it’s thinking.”

  She could feel his glare on her without looking over at him, but he did as he was told.

  “I can’t read anything. Whatever it is, it seems immune to having its mind read. If it even has a mind.”

  Kaylin typed again into the keyboard, directing the scanning equipment to run one more diagnostic. There really wasn’t much else to do at this point—they had limited scanning equipment on board the Defiance. As a trading vessel, they didn’t need the more expensive scanners the science and IU ships had on board.

  “There’s just not much we’re getting.” Kaylin frowned at the screen. “It’s definitely alive. But it isn’t anything anyone in the IU has seen before.” She paused. “Or at least reported on before.”

  Thad kicked away from his console and leaned back in his chair. “You know how the government had intel about the A’lyph for generations before they finally told the public about them?”

  “Well, I read about it in history class, sure.” Kaylin knew where he was going with this, but it probably wasn’t the best time. “You think we should get Barner up here to find out what he knows.”

  “Exactly.” Thad frowned. “Don’t you think it’s likely that he would have the information we need?”

  She sighed. Of course he was right—if there was intelligence on the existence of aliens outside the A’lyph, he would know. She wasn’t sure he would be willing to share that information if he did have it, but it might be worth a try.

  Kaylin tapped on the comm device on her ear. “Barner. Report to the bridge.”

  There was no response.

  “Barner?”

  Nothing.

  She tapped again on her earpiece. “Gregson? Report.”

  Nothing.

  She turned to Thad. “Is the comm down?”

  He tapped a few buttons on his console before turning back to her. “It doesn’t look like it.” He tapped on his comm device. “Ruce? Anyone?” He shook his head, turning back to Kaylin. “They aren’t responding. There was no one else in engineering. Someone must be with Barner. There has to be someone—”

  “Go find them. Start with Barner’s quarters and work your way out from there. Report when you find him.” Kaylin turned back to her console, trying to adjust one of the sensors to get a more accurate reading on what they were dealing with.

  “I’m…” His brow furrowed, and she couldn’t quite name the expression on his face. “I’m not leaving you alone on the bridge, Kaylin.”

  “Captain.” She let out an angry huff. “We’ve talked about this before, Thad. I’m your Captain everywhere outside our quarters—”

  “As much as that may be true, Captain, I’m not leaving you alone with that…thing. I actually wasn’t speaking as your…” He lowered his voice, though there was no one else on the bridge. “…Lover. I’m speaking as a member of your crew. We don’t leave anyone alone in a dangerous situation. I do believe those are your rules.” He turned to her, lifting a brow with the slightest of smiles on his lips. “Captain.”

  She couldn’t really argue with his logic. That was her rule, and it did seem to fit the situation. “Fine. Hail the crew. Ask everyone on board to report.” She motioned behind her at Brax’s station. “You should be able to do it from there.”

  He nodded in agreement and slid out of his seat, taking the one at the rear of the bridge. A moment later, she heard the low tone of the ship-wide comm signal before Thad began speaking. “Alert. Everyone on board, please have a member of your team check in immediately.”

  “Dayna and I are safe in sickbay.” Brax responded almost immediately.

  Kaylin wanted a more detailed report from the two of them, but now was not the time. She needed to hear from the other nine members of her crew—and their guest.

  But there was no further response.

  “We need to go out there and find out what’s going on.” Kaylin stood from the console. “If anyone—”

  “Kaylin.” Thad stood from Brax’s station, walking toward her. “Captain. You can’t go out there alone. And…” He motioned toward the viewport where the enormous alien creature still floated. “And we can’t leave the bridge.”

  “It makes more sense for us to split up, at least for right now.” She almost growled at him. “Do you want the bridge or do you want to go on a rescue mission?”

  His mouth fell open. “I said I’m not leaving your side, Captain.” His lips flattened to a line and he stared at her for a moment. “And I mean that as both your crewmember and as someone who cares about you. It isn’t safe out there—I’ll go if you order me to, but we both know something is going on that—”

  He didn’t get to finish the sentiment. Something jolted the ship, and they both were tossed to the side.

  Kaylin braced herself against the wall as another shockwave hit the ship. It was after the second jolt that the high-pitched whining started again. “What the hell is that?”

  Thad shook his head and stumbled across the bridge to get back to his station.

  She followed close behind, almost tripping into Dayna’s seat. She started to scan the object again, but whatever was happening didn’t seem to be coming from the thing outside.

  Brax’s voice came over the comm a second later. “Captain, there’s something…wrong. With Dayna.”

  She stood, not hesitating to leave the bridge this time when she heard Dayna’s cries in the background of Brax’s message. But Thad’s placed a hand on her forearm, reminding her that her duty at the moment was to figure out what the hell was going on.

  “Do the best you can, Brax.” Her heart twisted in her chest as she sank back into the navigator’s chair. “I can’t… You need to deal with it as best you can.”

  “Understood.” There was no hesitation in Brax’s voice as the comm cut off.

  “Captain.” Thad’s voice was low—Kaylin could tell he was trying to cover his personal concern for her and the crew. “Captain, there’s a strange reading on the starboard side of that…thing out there.”

  “Strange how?” She didn’t look over at him. She was still trying to adjust the sensors to get a better look at what was going on inside the other ship.

  “Strange in that…I think I’m reading two other life signs out there.”

  YUKI

  The pain seemed to last forever. It tore through her skull, threatening to tear her apart, almost blinding her.

  That was the worst part—the way it almost forced her eyes shut, making all the images come back. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep them open—the pain was too great, attacking her from the inside out, making her whole body feel like it was collapsing on itself. She couldn’t fight it. She could hear herself screaming—hear Ulan screaming, too—but she had no idea how to stop it.

  The strange images flickered one by one on the insides of her eyelids, and there was nothing she could do, no matter how much she tried. She could only watch, only wait for the pain to leave her. For a moment, she prayed that she’d lose consciousness…but then she realized that she had no idea what would happen then. Would the images and the pain actually stop? Or would she just be trapped with them in a different part of her brain?

  And then a strange thing happened.

  As she huddled there, trapped between pa
in and fear, the images began to slow. Since she’d acquired this strange curse, she’d never let herself close her eyes for more that a moment—it was too terrifying—but now she had no choice. The flashes of people and places and things began to linger a little longer—long enough for her to start to recognize them.

  Well, recognize some of them, anyway. Some were wholly foreign things. There was an image of a strange, sandy landscape with three moons hanging in the sky. There was another of creatures she’d never seen before, swimming in a body of clear water. Another of that woman Dayna from the Defiance, with that handsome man Yuki had seen earlier. Another of the purple-eyed monsters, looking at some writing she couldn’t decipher. There were perhaps twenty images in all, flickering one after the other in her mind, and she had no idea what it meant.

  Maybe it’s just dreams, she told herself. Very strange dreams…

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to analyze them any more than that.

  Suddenly, the pressure in her head released, the pain leaving her skull. She felt as if she could breathe again.

  All of the strength seemed to leave her. Her body, which a moment ago had been rigid with pain, suddenly felt like jelly. Her legs collapsed beneath her, and she found herself on the floor. Her throat ached—she must have screamed for longer than she realized—and everything seemed to throb.

  But she could open her eyes.

  For a moment, the room around her felt so bright. But it was better than keeping her eyes closed.

  She looked around, trying to reorient herself. With a shock, she remembered where she was—on one of their ships, with Ulan. With something trying to break down the door to the bridge.

  She looked over at the door. There was a large dent in the middle of the panel—someone or something had clearly been throwing its weight against it—but the door had held. And all seemed to be quiet now.

  Maybe whatever is out there experienced the same pain that we did.

  She looked around for Ulan. He was slumped over a control panel, his hand on the screen. He’d been reactivating the artificial gravity when the pain hit—looked like he managed to do it just in time. She wasn’t sure if he’d stabilized the air, too—she’d keep her suit on, just in case.