Chapter 4
Threat Assessment
How she had ended up in a warm cot was a hazy memory, but she blinked awake with far less of a blinding shock to her system than the last time.
This time, she was alone. Alone, and markedly less cold and terrified.
The foggiest image came to mind of her groggily agreeing to be moved into a proper place to sleep.
Apparently, that proper place was a narrow bed in a small personal cabin.
She indulged in a few toe-touches and reveled in the sensation of giving her limbs a proper stretch. Every nerve and tendon protested slightly at being stirred from stiffness, but it was a welcome sting. The room was cramped, just large enough to stride four paces in either direction.
The bed took up the entire length of one wall, and the wall opposite the bed had a rectangular mirrored surface.
Small scraps of paper were stuck to the edge of the panel with magnets and gaffer tape.
To-do lists, dozens of hand-sketched drawings of cats, and notes of affirmation and reassurance.
One note stood out: “You only get one life. Make it worth something.”
She touched her finger to the words, feeling a curious pang for what must have inspired the sentiment.
Reaching into the pocket of the jacket she had borrowed, she fished her small bag of stickers out from its hiding place.
She pressed a small, shimmering orange snake beside the note to join the collection.
With an accomplished smile, she tucked the bag away.
Her fingers brushed against the mirrored surface, and it bloomed into a bright home screen.
It was an interface, or perhaps a datascreen, depending on the local terminology.
The display was full of icons directing her to system information about the ship, personal messages, and several references and symbols that she had no context for.
With a breath, Leucifia — Fia — steeled herself.
Fia wasn’t a nickname she had often used, but she quite liked the way it sounded when he said it. Especially with that low rasp and playful creak in his voice. She had recuperated enough to delve into the datastreams here, and she readied herself for the plunge.
With a few steadying breaths, she let her senses shift to that altered perception she had trained her whole life to master.
The visceral world around her blurred, but her mind brought into crisp focus the signal waves and transmissions around her.
Streams of data and the thrumming veins of electrical power that fed through the ship lit up in her vision like dozens of thin rivers in the air.
The form and shape of the datastreams were familiar, but slightly askew.
The protocols were foreign, and the encryption was marginally more advanced than anticipated.
To her surprise and delight, there was far less noise in the array of signals before her.
Usually, it was a veritable sea of interconnected systems and pathways to navigate, but here it was sparse.
Then again, this was not her ship. Not her home.
If there is a home anymore.
For a few moments, she let herself indulge.
The familiarity of doing something she knew so intimately was intensely reassuring.
No matter what had happened, she still had her gifts.
She splayed her hands and delighted in the sparkling feeling of the glowing strands as they passed around her clawed fingertips.
It wasn’t a truly physical sensation, simply her mind blending the visual perception with touch.
A facet from years of training on the Fleet, learning how to interpret the frequencies she was sensitive to.
Other Sentu, like her, learned to breathe it in. Some saw datastreams as songs to harmonize with. Fia saw it as a weave, one she could spin and pluck as needed. And like an errant thread in a tapestry, the feeble encryption on the datastream she sought was something she could simply cut free.
The screen bloomed in front of her with a torrent of internal information.
Everything this terminal had access to lay bare before her, ready to be taken.
She expected the ship to be a large craft, given the size of the cargo bay.
At the very least, she had hoped it was fitted with a decent transmission module she could tap into.
Something she could use to find her squadron.
To see if anyone else had awoken like her, scared and alone.
To her surprise, she found The Argent was a small, barely functional cargo ship.
There was scarcely anything of use she could access.
The most interesting thing was a basic itinerary from port to port, and several maintenance logs chock-full of warnings and alerts.
The Argent had no on-board weapons, no interstellar transmission equipment.
But notably, to her relief, no hallmarks of a Federation vessel.
Now, what about the personnel…
Before she snooped into the private data logs she had queued up, there was a loud clang from the vent above her that made her bolt upright. She immediately swiped at the screen to dismiss the interface and hide her prying.
Even in her worried state like this, she shouldn’t intrude. Not out of a sense of kindness or morality — boundaries were not her concern. Right now would just be a very, very bad time to be caught meddling. She wasn’t keen to burn a bridge with that man so soon.
At a minimum, she needed to find out where he sourced his food from first. Her stomach twinged, recalling the savory memory of noodle-y wonder she had devoured the night before. Whatever it was, it had left her feeling satiated and revitalized.
With a flick of her finger, she brought the screen back to its default state, a plain mirror, to check on her recovery.
Her skin looked far less sunken and dull.
The fringes of her tendrils and the thicker scales along her shoulders had taken on the darker green she was more accustomed to seeing in her reflection.
Even the faint orange-pink coloration of her lips and the webbing between her fingers had returned, no longer the dreary gray from the day before.
A good sign that she was finally getting proper circulation back.
The borrowed pair of shorts and plush hooded jacket hung awkwardly on her angular torso and narrow shoulders.
The shorts were comically short, and they barely peeked out from beneath the hem of the jacket.
It was soft and breathable, though. Feeling fresh air on her permeable skin again after however long she had been stuffed in the flightsuit was more than enough to compensate for the awkward appearance.
Unfortunately, this outfit had far fewer discreet locations to sheathe her weapon. The scant few possessions she owned were stuffed into her pockets. All except her vertiblade.
The thin blades along the whip-like weapon were pliable and harmless when inactive, and the connecting braid of filament was flexible enough to bend and wrap for storage.
She kept it coiled around her bicep, and to any unfamiliar eye, she hoped it would just appear as a decorative bit of jewelry.
A horrible place for tactical use, but her options were limited.
Everything I own fits in the palm of my hand now.
She pressed on through the creeping sense of loss to continue with her assessment. Content with confirming she wasn’t cyanotic or unarmed, she pulled the interface back up to search for some much-needed information. Something to set her footing in this strange place.
Clearly, she had been in cryostasis for longer than twelve years.
It was a reality she had been putting off facing.
When her squadron left the flagship, Tau Ceti had been an untouched system, inhabited by nothing but scout drones.
There was a terrible possibility that she might be a generation removed from her anticipated arrival, maybe two.
She was off by an order of magnitude.
Gentle knocking on the door pulled her from her solemn trance.
“Come in,” she murmured.
The door slid open, and Fia greeted Davik with a nod. She was grateful that her tears had dried before he arrived. This day had been too fraught and too strange for her to handle being pitied by a stranger. Not while she worked through the feeling of indescribable loss and fear.
“Just wanted to check in on you— Woah!” Davik exclaimed, pointing at her with his mouth agape. “You’re green!”
She blinked. First one eye, then the other. His statement was perplexing. Of course, she was green. Mainly green, at least. She tilted her head to eye Davik curiously, still sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“And you are …” she began as she pointed at him, squinting slightly.
English. An English word for that color. I wish they had an English word for llevir scales. They are beautiful, shimmering, and deep golden-brown, like him.
“Do you know what a llevir is?” she asked, eschewing the attempt at translating.
“A lever…? Like a handle?”
“No, it is a creature. From Bhrella. Burrows. Decorates its caves. You resemble one.”
“So, what, like a hedgehog?” he asked with a laugh.
“I’ll, uh, try to take that as a compliment then.
Maybe they are very handsome rodents. Don’t correct me if I’m wrong.
Let me live in happy ignorance.” He gestured to her again with a sweeping motion.
“I was just trying to say that the last time I saw you, you were looking pretty gray and monochromatic. Feeling better?”
Despite the residual ache in her body and the aimless sorrow in her heart, his unwavering playfulness was infectious.
There was even a little dimple that appeared on his cheek when he smiled, but just on the left side.
She had a sudden desire to press her finger on the opposite side of his face to mirror that joyful indentation.