Page 3 of Shattered Silence

But he couldn’t. Despite his yearning for absolute silence, the sheer improbability of encountering another vessel in the sparsely populated Outer Sectors had stoked his curiosity.

“Accept,” he said, the word dropping from his lips before he had a chance to think. He didn’t really understand why he’d just allowed the sylth to receive the signal, but all he had to do was listen, not respond. Perhaps he just needed something to focus on; something other than the Tharian and his own dark thoughts.

If he couldn’t find peace here, then where? Fucking Tharian. Cursed insomnia. Infernal sylth.

Suddenly, the navigation room was filled with the strangest sound he’d ever heard.

A voice. Speaking a language he didn’t understand, but one he recognized. An Earth language. A human?

A female.

And she wasn’t exactly speaking. No, she was stringing together a series of strange melodic sounds, some coming from deep within her throat, others high-pitched and shrill.

Kaiin’s Hells, she was loud.

What manner of communication was this? Her incessant warbling was incredibly irritating to his sensitive ears.

“Stop,” he snapped in Kordolian, and all of a sudden, the female did exactly that.

“Wh-what?” She spoke Universal, her startled question punctuated with the faint crackle of static. Tinged with fear, her voice also carried a tremulous note of hope. “Who is this?”

Enki said nothing, equally surprised that at the end of all that hellish noise, there was an actual person.

“Please be real,” she begged. “Don’t leave me.”

Something in her tone opened a tiny, tiny fissure in Enki’s black Kordolian heart. “Hm.” He let out a soft grunt in response, letting her know that he was definitely here, and that he was very, very real.

She took a deep, measured breath, as if to calm herself. “D-do you speak Universal?”

“Yes.” Despite himself, Enki was now curious. What was this frightened human female doing at the border of the Eighth and Ninth sectors? Even the passenger in his mind had gone quiet, as if bemused by this unexpected development.

“Can you identify yourself?”

“Perhaps,” Enki said coolly. “It depends.” Suspicious by nature, it occurred to him that this could even be a trap; some recording or AI-speech designed to lure in the unsuspecting rescuer. Space-pirates were becoming increasingly desperate, and he wouldn’t put such tactics past them.

“Depends on what?” Her voice turned sharp with irritation. Rapid, shallow breathing and a faint tremble told Enki she was in some sort of physical distress. No, the creature on the other end of the transmission was no AI. She was definitely a living, breathing human being.

“Who are you, what do you want, and why are you broadcasting on an open channel?”

She took a deep breath, in the way humans often did when they were trying to calm themselves. “My name is Layla dela Cruz. I need your help.”

“State your location.”

“Uh…” There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Then your request is pointless,” Enki said flatly. What was this human playing at? Still, he kept the comm line open. “I need more information.”

“I… I’m somewhere in the Ninth Sector. In a passenger transport escape-pod… drifting. The reason I can’t tell you my location is because I have no fucking idea where I am.”

Ah. Now the open signal made sense. It was a distress call from a desperate, stranded human. Enki was no tech specialist, but he knew the sylth would be able to track the human’s location as long as she kept broadcasting the signal.

But that would also make her a target for others.

Why should you bother, soldier? It’s just a human. An insignificant creature to a powerful warrior like you. The Tharian’s tone was faintly mocking.

Silence. It is not for you to decide whether she is of significance to me.

Ah. It’s easy to forget that you Kordolians tend to lose your heads whenever you encounter these human females. Perhaps even you aren’t immune, even though you keep trying to convince yourself you will not take a mate.

---