Captured

“You didn’t think it through, did you?” the alien asked smugly.

The execution had been flawless. It took some time to psyche himself up, but once he had unscrewed the grille fasteners, his timing was perfect. The moment the grille hit the deck, alerting the aliens of his presence, he gripped the edge of the opening and slid out headfirst, rolling until his feet were in position for a smooth drop, then a quick glance showed him where the Security Services panel was located. It was next to a door, a dark panel with a big red button right in the middle, the only feature on the entire plate. One of the aliens had shouted a warning to the others, but it was too late. His palm slammed down on the button, and a bulkhead immediately slammed down over the door, sealing it off. The deck vibrated with the distant thudding of more bulkheads pounding into place and it was done. Just like that, the Drive Deck was sealed off from the rest of the ship.

He turned to flee, hoping to get away from the aliens before they realized their predicament, and froze uncertainly. There was nowhere to go. He glanced desperately at the hole through which he’d entered and saw it out of reach in a very high ceiling. How had he even survived the drop without hurting himself? He stared in disbelief, until that alien got his attention with that sarcastic remark.

“Stop where you are!”

The aliens had fanned out to block his escape in every direction, and three of them held weapons on him. That wasn’t good!

“Who are you?” one of them demanded. It was the same voice that had issued the command and the remark. Brown skin. Black hair. Dark eyes. Definitely alien. “How did you get here?”

One thing he knew from the ship’s serialized dramas was that he didn’t have to answer their questions. In fact, it felt like a better idea not to answer them. He wasn’t going to cooperate in their ransacking of the ship, no matter what they did to him.

The speaker waited only a moment for a reply before turning to the others. “Analysis?”

“A member of the crew, maybe?” one replied.

The first alien shook his head. “There are no other life signs aboard ship.”

So, they admit it! They killed the rest of the crew! The bastards!

“A survivor?” a young female with a crude pad in her hand asked uncertainly. She was smaller and frailer than the others, so he had to assume she was younger, too.

“Unlikely,” a male alien with sandy hair and pale skin replied. “He’s definitely alien, though.”

“Could he have come from another ship?” the first one asked.

“We didn’t detect any other vessels in the area,” the sandy-haired male replied. “But I suppose it’s possible.”

“Becker to LaSalle,” the first alien’s suit suddenly blurted. “Come in!”

“LaSalle here, Commander,” the first alien immediately replied.

“Monitors indicate something happening in your location,” the Commander said. “What’s going on down there?”

The one called LaSalle kept his eyes trained on him as he spoke. In fact, all of them did, no matter who they were addressing. It should have made him feel like the most dangerous person in the world. Instead, it made him feel like a specimen under observation, especially the way the young female with the pad looked at him.

“We’ve had an incident here,” LaSalle confirmed. “An alien, possibly an intruder, we aren’t certain, seems to have triggered something that sealed off the section.”

“The entire section?” the Commander demanded.

LaSalle glanced across the deck, the first time he’d looked elsewhere since the capture. “Not sure, sir. Most likely, though.”

“Find out,” the Commander ordered. LaSalle gestured to one of the aliens currently not holding a weapon out, sending her to look, while the Commander added, “You know, this alien complicates things, Jason.”

“Yes, sir,” LaSalle replied.

“Is it a member of the crew?”

“Unknown, sir,” LaSalle replied. “Given previous telemetries of this area, I’d guess that he isn’t from outside the ship.”

The communicator paused. “That… that complicates things a lot.”

“Yes, sir,” LaSalle stiffly replied. After a grim pause, he asked, “What’s our window?”

The communicator was quiet for a moment, then the Commander solemnly said, “We have twenty minutes. Thirty-nine is the critical limit before…”

The Commander didn’t finish the thought. According to LaSalle’s grim expression, he didn’t need to. “Understood, sir.”

The communicator paused momentarily, then the Commander said, “Jason, we’re going to do everything on our end to get you out of there. I need you to do the same.”

“Agreed,” LaSalle gravely replied. He took a deep breath and added, “Sir, in the event that you need to leave us behind….”

“That isn’t going to happen,” the Commander assured him.

LaSalle didn’t look convinced. “In the event that you must leave us behind, don’t hesitate. The safety of the ship takes precedence over us.”

The communicator paused. “We’re going to get you out of there, Jason. If we can, we’ll get everyone out.”

LaSalle nodded but wasn’t convinced. “Yes, sir.”

“Find a way out,” the Commander ordered. “Or undo the seal. We’ll keep working on our end. Twenty minutes should be plenty of time to get it done.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Commander, out.”

LaSalle took a deep breath and turned to the others. “Options?”

“I’ll keep studying the systems,” a male replied. “Maybe I can figure them out in time.”

“Take whoever you need to help,” LaSalle replied.

“Sir,” the young female with the pad said, keeping a curious gaze on their captive. “The alien triggered the seal. Maybe he can undo it?”

“Maybe,” LaSalle skeptically agreed. He eyed the captive warily, then asked the female, “Henricksen, can you extrapolate a linguistic base for a translation program?”

“Maybe,” the female replied, beginning to tap commands onto her pad. “But I’ll need a sample of his language first.”

His brows knit at a brand-new idea. Play dumb. They couldn’t force information out of someone that couldn’t understand a word they were saying. He just had to keep them from finding out, so he put on his best dumb guy face and hoped it was enough to fool them.

“Basic concepts first, then,” LaSalle told himself, contemplating his prisoner. After some thought, he pointed at himself and said very slowly and distinctly, “My name is Jason LaSalle. Jason. Jason.”

He wanted to roll his eyes, but his dumb guy persona wouldn’t do it, so he refrained from it himself. Every time LaSalle said his own name, he pointed at himself, which, when one thought about it, was the dumbest thing anyone could do when trying to communicate with someone that doesn’t speak one’s language. For all the dumb guy knew, Jason LaSalle could be the name of his species, or the brand of his environmental suit. So, he just watched Jason LaSalle’s attempt at communication and tried not to laugh.

“That’s not working,” LaSalle told himself when he failed to get a response. He glanced at Henricksen. “Any ideas?”

Henricksen shook her head, but she studied the prisoner with more intense curiosity than earlier, and he scowled at her. Why was she looking at him like that? Did she suspect his ruse? Or was it something else?

LaSalle sighed, then bowed his head in thought. Finally, he looked the prisoner square in the eye and said, “Look, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t know who you are or where you came from, but this ship is in terrible danger. It’s on a collision course with our sun, and in less than thirty-nine minutes it’s going to be trapped in the gravity well and pulled in without any chance of escape, and if we’re still here, then it’s going to take us with it. So, I need your help. I need you to lift the seal on this section so we can get back to our ship in time. Now, I know you don’t understand a word I’m saying but -!”

“Sir,” Henricksen interrupted.

“Henricksen?” LaSalle replied, turning towards her.

“Sir,” she said, indicating the prisoner with her chin. “He can understand what you’re saying.”

Damn it! How did she find out?

“What do you mean?” LaSalle demanded.

“He’s responding to what you’re saying, sir,” Henricksen replied.

LaSalle studied him critically. “Maybe he’s just responding to the tone of my voice?”

“No, sir,” Henricksen replied. “Micro-expressions indicate that he’s fully aware of what you’re saying.”

LaSalle studied him warily. “You can understand me?”

He tried to maintain the dumb guy persona, but something told him it was useless in Henricksen’s presence, so he nodded warily. It was better to confess than have it forced out of him.

LaSalle surprised him. “So, you understand the danger we’re all in? Us, you, and any other crew members still alive?” His brow knit together and he asked, “Is there anyone else aboard ship?”

He couldn’t help it. He growled, “I thought you already killed them!”

LaSalle quickly turned to Henricksen. “What did he say?”

Henricksen shrugged, furiously pounding on her pad. “I don’t know. Keep him talking!

“…sir!” she hastily added, looking at LaSalle in alarm.

“It’s all right, ensign,” LaSalle assured her. “Just keep up the good work.”

Henricksen flushed. “Yes, sir.”

LaSalle turned to him. “Why don’t you talk to us in our language? It’ll make communications much smoother.”

He scowled at LaSalle. Didn’t he already know? Oh! Right! Aliens! But should he answer the question? It wasn’t really a secret. In fact, it was fairly common practice in the Service.

“I have a biometric implant in the language center of my brain,” he told them, pointing to the place where the doctors had when they were trying to explain the procedure to him. It was years ago, but he still remembered the exact spot. It still itched sometimes. “It translates foreign languages instantly and lets me understand them. Doesn’t let me speak them, though.”

He shrugged. “Don’t know why.”

LaSalle glanced at Henricksen, but she was too busy scowling at the pad to notice. Her fingers tapped furiously, sometimes sliding one way or another, her face locked in deep concentration. Probably fighting with the AI, if it was anything like what he had to put up with on a daily basis.

What was he doing? Sympathizing with the enemy? What next? Laughing over some brews? He had to get it together!

“I won’t cooperate with you,” he told LaSalle. It was probably a stupid thing to say, but it sure sounded brave. “And I don’t believe your story. So, since you’re going to kill me anyway, just tell me what you’re really after.”

Yeah. That was definitely stupider than it was brave. Great job! He screwed himself for certain.

“Henricksen?” LaSalle demanded, glancing at her.

She shook her head, her hands squeezing the edges of her pad as if she wanted to snap it in half. Yeah, he knew how she felt.

“Problem?” LaSalle asked.

“The linguistics program is having trouble translating the language,” she snapped, then quickly composed herself.

LaSalle waited for her to elaborate, but when she instead tapped on her pad some more, he prompted, “And?”

“I don’t understand what’s wrong,” she said, tearing her eyes off the screen and hastily adding, “Sir.”

“One step at a time, ensign,” LaSalle calmly replied. “What do you have?”

She shook her head, her frightened expression clearly showing that she was aware of their situation. “A bunch of gibberish. I don’t know! Maybe the syntax doesn’t have any similar context…?”

“Meaning…?” LaSalle prompted.

She pursed her lips and fiercely studied the pad. “Let me try something…”

“”You can do this, ensign,” LaSalle assured her. “That’s why you’re here.”

Their distress and their commitment to the story made him reassess the situation. Was the one named LaSalle telling the truth? Was the ship headed for their sun? There was no reason for pirates to create such an elaborate ruse just to trick him into cooperating with them. Right? So, maybe they hadn’t murdered the crew, after all? Maybe they weren’t pirates either? There was still no way to know for sure, not without being able to communicate with them. But even so, why hadn’t Security Services detected them? They were still alien intruders no matter their motive. That was going to bug him for a while.

That and the fact that he was stuck on the Drive Deck with a bunch of chipless morons!