Circini's Plight

“Fuck Rae, can’t you do anything to get a little more out of this bird?” Thule says, his head hitting the bulkhead, as another shot from the pursuing fighters hit the airframe of the Circini.
“Jesus, calm your ass down, I’m trying to keep us in the air...” Rae growled back at David, as she maneuvered the shuttle, trying to avoid the incoming fire.
“Well, try harder, or else, we might have to throw her,” he says, nodding towards Sahayla, “out the air lock. She’s the reason they’re after us. We can get another load.
Sahayla stares at Thule, dumbfounded, not believing what she’s hearing.
“No one’s going out the air lock; just give me a few, alright?” Rae says, trying to focus on flying the ship.
“Then work your magic, you…” he blushes. “Wow, I have no idea… what are you, Rae. I know you aren’t from Earth, obviously. We’ve been working together a year, and I still don’t know where you came from?
“Don’t worry about what I am…” Rae mutters, before turning her attention back to the ship.
“Now, to you Sahayla, what the fuck were they doing to you? We were contracted to get you out. Now what?”
Sahayla stares at David in anger, but, does not reply to him.
“Rae, I’m heading to Engineering to see if I can get any more out of the engines. Sahayla, sit tight. We’ll have you out of here in no time.” He says, ducking to go through the hatch. He’s knocked off-balance by another shot, and his head slams into the bulkhead. “AWW, DAMMIT! Fucking military asswi…” he says, his voice getting drowned out by the rising scream of the twin engines.
Sahayla, giggles for a little bit, and then stops, staring at Rae hungrily.
Rae glances over her shoulder at Sahayla, and catches her gaze. “Can I..uhm..help you?”
Sahayla giggles. “Uh…no…” she says, looking away quickly.
Thule steps back into the cockpit. “Rae, I managed to milk nineteen more percent from the… Sahayla, what the Hell are you doing?”
She looks at the ground, hurt. “Nothing…”
“Rae, everything okay up here?”
“Uhm, fine. Yeah, everything’s good,” she mumbles, returning her attention to the ship.
Sahayla stares at Thule until he answers.
“Can I help you?”
“Is there anything that I can eat on here?”
“Yeah.” He sighs, “Follow me.” “Oh, and Rae?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep us alive.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” she replies, shaking her head.
“We’ll be in the galley if you need us.”
David starts walking towards the hatch, and Sahayla stands up and follows him out of the cockpit, like an obedient puppy, being careful not to touch anything. About half way to the galley, David stops, and turns to face Sahayla.
“I have a few questions for you.”
Sahayla looks at him, startled.
“Ye-yes?”
“Who are you? Who hired us to bust you out? Why did they have a high-security facility housing you alone?”
“I am Sahayla Luna… What I am… I am a weapon. Who hired you, I don’t know, but, they housed me alone because I couldn’t be trusted.”
“Oh, fuck me. You mean to tell me that you’re some kind of bio-weapon?”
“I guess. All I know is that the Voices told me I wasn’t human. I don’t know what I even look like…”
“You look human enou… you’re a psionic, aren’t you? One of those fucking government experiments to create a super-soldier. A telepathic weapon… God, are we fucked, or what?”
“What do you mean?”
He shakes his head. “You aren’t supposed to be real. But, during the Tel’darim wars, it was learned that some humans had latent psychic abilities. Psionics, the press labeled them. Many of them disappeared from their homes and weren’t heard from again.”
She looks at him, confused.
“Well, you said you were hungry. Come in here, and I’ll get you a ration pack.” He walks over to a cabinet, and pulls a foil envelope from it.
“Here, it’s all we have at the moment. Enjoy your reconstituted artificial beef substitute.” He hands the envelope to Sahayla. Turning from her, he moves towards the hatch, to a small comms panel inset into the wall. “Uh, Rae, there’s something that you need to know…”
Before Rae even gets a response out, David’s distracted by Sahayla.
“That was disgusting,” she says, throwing the ration down.
“Hold on Rae” he turns to Sahayla. “Well, it’s that or starve, at the moment. If we even survive to get off this rock.”
Sahayla makes eye contact with him. “Blood is what I need.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said that I need blood.”
“bl-blood?”
She looks at him puzzled. “Yes. Is that bad?”
David, caught off-guard, answers. “Err, kinda, yeah, it is. That’s not exactly what can be called ‘normal behavior’ from a person.”
She glares at David like he’s an idiot. “Who said I was normal. I just told you that I was a weapon. I’m not human.”
“If you are what I think you are, you are a person. Or were, until they…” he trails off.
“Until what?” Sahayla, asks, hopeful.
“Until the government did whatever they did to make you into this. You were probably so gifted, and, they made you into… into…. This...” he says, a look of disgust on his face.
Sahayla looks wounded, and begins to tear up. “You think I’m ugly, that I shouldn’t be alive, don’t you?”
David looks embarrassed. “No, no, that’s not it, Sahayla.” He lays his hand on her shoulder, gently. “I’m disgusted that the government could do this to an innocent, beautiful girl, like you.”
She giggles, but still sounds hurt. “Beautiful…” She moves away from Davids touch, and sits down in the corner, facing away from him.
David returns to the comm panel. “I’m back.”
“What was the issue?” Rae replies, staring at her comm.
“Know all those myths about the government using those with latent psychic powers as weapons?”
“Oh, Jesus…” Rae swore softly, scanning the airspace in front of the ship.
David begins to add something, and then is cut off as Sahayla begins screaming.
Rae winces, and slams her hand down on the power button, as Sahayla’s ear-piercing scream is transmitted through the comm.
“Sahayla, what is it? What’s going on?” David says frantically, rushing to her side.
“THEY ARE HERE!!”
“Sahayla, who’s here? Calm down, talk…”
“The Voices…” she says, as she begins to claw at her skin.
The comm crackles to life behind them. “What’s going on down there?”
Frantically, David yells back, “Rae, aim for vacuum, and set ‘er on auto. I need you down here NOW!” he says, grabbing Sahayla’s hands, trying to prevent her from hurting herself. She screams louder, then grabs one of his hands, with her mouth, biting hard. It draws blood.
“Bitch,” he exhales sharply, as he grabs her hands even harder and pushes them to her lap.
“David, they will kill us…let me go…” Sahayla cries. She breaks free of David, and, in the blink of an eye, releases a burst of psychic energy strong enough to render her and David unconscious. Rae rounds the corner in time to see David and Sahayla slumping to the deck.
“David, what’s going….” Rae whispers, watching them both fall. She rushes to a cabinet, and retrieves the first aid kit. Kneeling beside the two, David begins to stir.
“Mmnph the fuck happened…” he grumbles.
“David! Jesus, what happened? And, your hands? What…” Rae shakes her head, opening the medical kit.
“What about…” he begins, looking down at his hands, which are covered in blood. “Rae, get her first. She needs it more.”
“What can I do to help…” she says softly, her ears back.
“Stop the blood.”
They move closer, and try to stem the bleeding, as well as clean up some of the blood. As Rae is wiping blood from Sahayla’s face, she comes to, and freaks out when she is face to face with Rae. She tackles her, ready to kill. David manhandles her off of Rae.
“Rae, I’ll deal with her. You need to get back to the cockpit.”
“I’m sorry!” Rae squeaks, shrinking away from Sahayla. She shoots David a worried glance, before heading back.
“Sahayla, are you okay?” She doesn't even reply to David, as she passes out from blood loss.
“Fuck, stay with me…” he says, injecting a mixture of anti-shock medications and stimulants, “stay…with…me…” Her breathing accelerates slightly, but it is still the shallow breaths of someone very close to death. David retrieves an emergency transfusion bag of artificial blood from the cabinet, and injects it into her arm. “Come on, bitch, fight. Come back. You can’t die like this.” She opens her eyes slowly, looking up at David like she had just seen a ghost, and then jerked, bumping her head against David’s.
“Calm down. Be still. I’ll be right back.” He jumps up and moves towards the comm panel. “Rae, how long until we reach the slipspace jump point?”
Rae jumps at the unexpected voice, and checks the primary flight display. “Not more than a few minutes, David.”
“Okay, Rae, I need you to enter the coordinates for our usual little safe system. And, as soon as the slipspace drive engages, I need you down here. Understood?”
“Got it.” Rae says, nodding to herself. She moves her hands across the keyboard beside her, entering coordinates and bringing the long-range drive online.
David moves back to Sahayla. “You’re gonna make it. Stay with me. Do you remember your name?”
Sahayla moves to sit up, but collapses. “I…I think so…”
David catches her. “C’mon… stay with me. What is your name?”
“Sah…Lunn…” She starts, but then closes her eyes, drifting into a deep sleep.
“Close enough, Sahayla…” David whispers to her unconscious form, lowering her gently to the deck. He walks back to the comm panel. “Rae, ETA to the jump?”
“Ten seconds,” Rae called back to him, double checking coordinates.
David nodded to himself, then held his breath. He never could get used to the disorientation of transitition…