The Defiant
Chapter Eight

My comm buzzed in my ear. I tapped it and answered.

“What?”

“I made dinner in the galley,” Seven’s voice said proudly over the line.

“Hold on. Let me put the ship on autopilot,” Four answered. The others reported as well.

I stood up from my bed and stretched. Leaving my room, I rode the lift up a deck to Deck Two.

Two and Seven were already in the galley, Seven behind the counter setting out eight plates of what looked like powdered potatoes and dried fruit.

“Yum?” I said questioningly, regarding the unappetizing plates with what I hoped did not look to Seven like disgust.

“Well, I’m no great shakes at cooking, but I was starving and it didn’t look like anyone else was going to make food,” she answered, grinning bashfully.

“Yeah—Maybe you should stick to the med bay,” Two said, poking the surprisingly rigid potato mass with a fork.

“Oh, right—One, after we all left the bridge, I went back to the med bay to finish cleaning it up, and I knew what everything was. Remember when I gave you that sedative to knock Eight out before we knew she wasn’t—well, a crazed psycho woman intent on murdering us all? I think the people who kidnapped us meant for me to be the ship’s doctor.”

“Good to know that if one of us gets shot or something, someone knows how to fix us up. I just wonder who they meant to be the cook,” I said.

“Hey! How do you know it’s not me?” Seven asked in mock indignation.

“What’s not you?” Four asked as she walked in, followed by Six and Three.

“The cook.”

“If you’re not the cook, why did you make dinner?” Three asked with a scowl.

“Were you going to?”

Six wrinkled his nose at the amorphous goo on the counter and barged into the kitchen, pulling an apron off the rack on the wall and tying it on.

“Maybe he’s the cook,” Seven chuckled as Six bustled past her, turning on appliances, looking ridiculous in the white apron, which was far too small for his huge frame.

Seven left the kitchen and came back out into the galley as Five and Eight arrived together, completing the crew.

“I thought you said you made dinner, Seven,” Five joked.

“We get it! I suck at cooking. Apparently, meal preparation’s Six’s job. You can all let it go now,” Seven admonished, but she smiled good-naturedly.

“I checked out the uncoded information in the computer banks, and we have a stop at a planet called Byth in about two weeks, barring any unforeseen circumstances. But we’ll be passing through Kryllian space between then and now, and they aren’t exactly friendly to visitors, so if they detect us, we’re going to have a problem. There are coordinates to a moon base with a repair yard we can use if we clash with the Kryllians,” Four reported.

“Interesting. Hostile alien territory between us and our goal? Seems almost like a sign that we should turn around and hope our memories come back naturally,” Three groused, crossing her arms grumpily.

“Zip it. Anyway.”

“Anyway what?” asked Two after a minute of silence.

“Oh, nothing. I just wanted to tell Three to shut up,” Four said. Three narrowed her eyes at her.

Six barged through the kitchen door carrying a plate of rehydrated chicken. He said it down in front of Seven and gestured with his hands.

“He’s telling you to never make food again,” Three said bemusedly as Six went back into the kitchen and emerged with more plates.

Seven took a bite of hers and grinned. “You know, Six, I never thought rehydrating dried food could take so much skill, but you have soundly bested me at this culinary challenge.” She stood up and made an exaggerated show of bowing to him.

Once Six had returned to the table and everyone had food, Four repeated for Six what she’d told us, and then continued.

“So Imelda told us the journey would be about a month. The computer estimates 746 hours, which comes out to about 31 days, not accounting for delays. Allowing for a few resupply stops, we should be in space for about 33 days, as long as we’re lucky in Kryllian space. Speaking of, we’ll be passing through in about a week. Traveling at top speed, it’ll take us four or five hours to get through.”

“What are the Kryllians?” Seven asked through a mouthful of chicken.

“They’re one of the four intelligent alien races humans have contacted in our years of space travels, and by far the most reclusive and hostile. No one has actually seen one in person. Anyone who passes through their space is immediately shot at, though many survive because the Kryllians aren’t as technologically advanced as humans. They do not tolerate any attempt at communication—”

“So like you, then?” Three smirked.

“Do you want to learn important information that is vital to our mission, or do you want to work my last nerve? I assure you, choosing the latter will not work out well for you,” Four said menacingly.

“Oh, yeah, I’m terrified. What’re you, four foot ten and eighty pounds?”

“What are the other three species?” I asked, eyeing the dangerous looks on Four’s and Three’s faces. I was starting to think my entire month would be spent preventing fights between Four and various crew members.

“Well, there’s the Sedha,” Four began, still glaring at Three. “We’ve had by far the most contact with them. They’re not as advanced as us either, but a lot more prevalent in human societies than the other three. They’re amphibious. There’s the Valhalla, who actually had contact with the Vikings a long time ago when they came to Earth to scope it out for habitation. The Valhalla don’t approve of human politics, so they’re kind of reclusive as well. They’re inherently peaceful, and they refuse to take part in our conflicts.”

“I know the last one,” Two jumped in eagerly. “The Albahaloruans. They come from a planet with a chlorine-based atmosphere, so they can’t exist in human oxygen ships. And their planet is very hot and windy, like a desert, so they have hard exoskeletons and no external openings, like mouths. They ‘see’ through a process like echolocation, and communicate telepathically with each other, so it took a long time for human diplomats to figure out how to talk to them.”

“How do you know about the ablahoora— balahurn— How do you know about them?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I just remembered,” Two said, frowning slightly. “I remember... I remember... it’s gone now.” He shrugged.

“But you did remember,” Five interjected. “That means our memories might come back naturally.”

“But she doesn’t even remember who she is. It’s just random. If our memories do come back, it’s going to take a long time. Don’t get your hopes up,” Eight said.

“They’re not,” Five protested, but I could see a telltale gleam in his eye.

Great.