Ensign Dylan Bryce: The Armor of Strangers (Part 2)
Kait
((Dark Hallway : Ivory Tower))
The starlight through the viewport was the only thing keeping the room from being a total void. Dylan could feel the tremor in the man's grip, a minute vibration that told her the Commander was failing to hold himself together. His confession about his missing memory still hung in the air, cold and jagged, making the silent consoles around them feel even more like graves.
She wasn't a Counselor or even an adult. And he wasn't the monster she had first assumed.
Bryce: I'm sixteen. Or... at least, I think so. But... it's weird. Everything feels so freakin weird.
Sael: I think I do not know who to trust.
The blade wavered... just a fraction. A millimeter of space opened up between her skin and the steel. Dylan didn’t move. She didn’t dare. But she leaned into that tiny crack of hesitation.
Bryce: Well, don't look at me. I don't even trust the floor right now. But you're shaking. For a guy with a weapon, you're... you're just as lost as I am, aren't you?
Outside, faint emergency lights flickered back to life along distant sections of the station’s hull. Not here. Not yet. But the dim amber pulse was a countdown, a reminder that the world they didn't remember was coming back for them.
Sael: That ship is mine. I remember commanding it. I remember defending my people. I do not remember choosing to stand in that tower and speak of peace.
The ship looked like a predator waiting in the dark.
Bryce: Peace? You? You've got a knife to my throat and you're talking about being a war hero. That ship looks like a nightmare. If you're a commander, then why are we hiding in a closet?
Dylan felt the blade shift, the biting cold of the metal finally losing its steady, terrifying edge against her neck. It was as if he had suddenly realized he was still holding her as a hostage even though they were both drowning in the same confusion.
There was no confidence left in his posture, just a desperate sort of forward motion, like he was moving because he did not know how to stop. When he spoke, his voice dropped, sounding rougher and more broken than before.
Sael: Tell me something true.
It wasn't a command. It was a plea wrapped in a warrior's steel.
Dylan’s pulse pounded hard enough to make her feel lightheaded, her heart hammering against the ribs of a body that felt too big, too old, and entirely too vulnerable. She held his gaze, kept her hands visible, and stripped away the Counselor mask she didn't know how to wear anyway.
Bryce: My name is Dylan. I hate the way this fabric feels on my skin. And I... I just want to go home.
The silence following her confession felt heavy. Dylan looked up at him, her eyes tracing the deep purple hue of his skin and the strange, ridged contours of his brow. He looked like something carved from shadow and starlight, his face set in a permanent, harsh expression. She still felt the phantom ache in her shoulder where he’d wrenched her back. The unyielding, armored plates of his uniform had felt less like clothing and more like the hull of a ship.
Sael: Response
As his hand shifted, she felt the pressure of his three long fingers and thumb, a grip that was alien, but terrifyingly steady. He moved with a kind of predatory grace that suggested that even if he didn't remember his name, his body remembered exactly how to hurt people. To her, he wasn't a Chancellor or a diplomat. He was the cold steel against her throat and the armored wall at her back.
Sael: Response
A low, rhythmic pulse began to vibrate through the deck plating as the station's heartbeat returned. A computer voice chirped a status update in a melodic, synthetic language, and the console near the viewport flickered to life, casting a sickly yellow glow over his ridged features.
To Dylan, the scrolling text on the screens looked like gibberish, but a weird, phantom itch in the back of her brain told her she should know how to read it. She should be able to counsel him, but all she wanted was to scream.
A sharp, metallic clack echoed from the corridor they’d just fled. It was followed by the unmistakable sound of heavy, synchronized footsteps. Not one person. A team.
Bryce: They’re coming.
She looked at the jagged, predatory ship outside the viewport, the one he claimed to command, and then back at the man who looked just as out of place in this tower as she felt. If he was a Commander of a ship that looked like a jagged tooth, maybe he was the only thing standing between her and whatever Ensign life was waiting outside that door.
Bryce: If you really are a commander... if that really is your ship... we can't stay in this closet and wait for them to find us. Tell me you know how to get us to that docking umbilical.
Sael: Response
Dylan’s heart hammered against her ribs, an adult’s heart, an adult’s ribs, but a kid’s terror. She gripped the hem of her uniform jacket, her knuckles white, waiting to see if this strange, armored stranger was going to be her captor or her way out of this nightmare.
...TBC/TAG...
Ensign Dylan Bryce
Counselor, Starbase 118 Ops
Writer: A238909RJ0
"Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."