Chapter 2: Old Enemies and New Nightmares

-Paul-

Waking up with a migraine just fucking sucks, period. When I came to, I immediately grasped my head with both hands, groaning. At first I thought I was just hungover from last night and had passed out on the floor, but then the memories started coming back to me. The mission, the wrecked ship, the black craft, the explosion, all of it. My eyes snapped open, but wherever I was, it was so dark that I couldn't see shit.

I could feel cool metal beneath me and the place smelled like hot lead and grease. It wasn't helping my migraine at all... I felt dizzy and nauseated as I sat up, trying not to focus on how sore I was. I started to check myself for injuries, but I noticed that whoever put me here, left my suit on. Wait, they stole my gloves and once my eyes started to adjust to the darkness, I noticed that they tore off my sleeves from the elbow down.

They also ripped off all my pockets and took my helmet too. Fuck... That means these assholes had my weed... Awesome. I only hoped Del was better off than me at this point.

Oh, shit, Del!

"Del?" I called out, wincing when my voice bounced off the walls and back into my eardrums, making my head throb. I heard some movement and called him again a little quieter so I wouldn't puke. I heard a groan to my right and I crawled toward it until I found a wall. I was still dizzy and I wasn't going to try standing just yet. From what little I could see, I was in some kind of cell with dark colored walls.

In the corners was this dim, green glow that was the only source of light in this room. I couldn't make out where the door or entrance was, but I could faintly see what looked like a small, arched window with these pinhead sized holes in the surface. It was set into the wall I was leaning against and I could see Del's silhouette moving on the other side. I watched him sit up and hold his head in his hands, grunting in pain.

"Del." I tried to get his attention. He looked around, apparently a little disoriented.

"Paul?" His voice sounded a little raspier than usual.

"Over here." I watched him turn around to look in my direction before crawling over to the window until he was adjacent to me. He sat down with his back to the wall and turned his head a little to talk to me.

"Ugh, where are we?" He asked.

"The fuck if I know..." I replied, "You okay?"

"I'm alright." He looked over himself to make sure. "My shit's all fucked up, but I'm fine. You?"

"I'm okay..." I sat back against the wall adjacent to Del. It didn't seem like we were going anywhere anytime soon anyways...

"You see anyway out?" He asked, in his tone I could tell he was expecting a 'no'. I let my eyes scan the room anyway. In fact, other than the little window, I couldn't see any sort of ventilation either.

"No... do you?" I already knew the answer before he said it.

"Nah..." Didn't think so. I sighed and swore out loud. This was bullshit. When we find a way to get out of here, those fuck-nuts back home were getting way more than just a piece of my mind. If you're gonna send people on a mission, it'd be nice to tell them about some of the risks they might encounter like, oh, cruising into what could possibly be hostile territory.

That's just me though... Whatever. No point dwelling on it right now. I could cross that fucked up bridge when I get to it. For now, I had to focus on figuring out who these dicks were and why they fucking blew up two of my people's ships.

We sat in silence for a while, trying to figure out what the fuck we were gonna do until a mechanized sound echoed through the room and a light filtered through the other arched window across my cell. The light cast two shadows across the floor in the other cell: one was tall, probably about the average height of a human, and the other I could barely see it was so small. I could hear a mixture of two voices, one high pitched and the other like a high-tenor. It sounded like they were arguing, and the taller shadow moved as if throwing something, or maybe someone, inside the other cell. I saw a small body land unceremoniously in front of the small window and I tensed a little.

It was a little kid and not just any little kid, but one of my people! He was at least half my height and he immediately got up and ran for the cell door as it shut closed, locking him in. I crawled over to the other side of my cell to lean against the wall there and I saw him pounding his little fists against the door.

"You're going to kill someone!" He screamed in our native language. With his high-pitched voice and our native dialect, it made him sound like a frantic cricket. I rubbed at my temples, trying to ease my throbbing head again. He seemed to give up and just sit with his back to the door, looking depressed about something. At that point, I was wondering how the fuck they managed to snatch a kid.

Back home, kids can't even leave the planet unless they've achieved adult status. It's mostly for safety reasons and this fucked up situation could well be one of them. I briefly wondered if maybe this kid was a survivor of that wreck in the Delta Quadrant...

"Hey, kid. Over here." I called to him in our native language. He looked over at me and seemed taken aback, as if he expected to be here by himself. I waved him over and he stood up to walk toward me. Judging by his size, he couldn't have been older than twelve. He wore a grey one-piece suit that looked similar to mine and Del's except it didn't have pockets and gloves, but he was wearing black boots.

"Did they take you too?" He asked as he knelt down in front of the window.

"Yeah... Me and my friend over there." I motioned to Del on the other side, who was squinting to try to see this kid and looked just as surprised and confused as I was. "You weren't on that ship that crashed in the Delta Quadrant, were you?"

I doubted that he could be, but to my surprise again, he nodded.

"Me and about five other people. We were on our way to Station 587 when we were intercepted by these guys." He tilted his head toward the door of his cell to indicate whoever threw him in there. "They boarded our ship and killed the pilot. Then they forced us onto their ship and shot our ship's reactor core."

Okay, that did explain a lot, there's still the question of how this kid got way out here and who the fuck 'these guys' were.

"So, how are you off-world right now?" I asked.

"I achieved adult status recently. I was out on a paid internship and if we got to Station 587, the engineers there would've had me work on the ships that docked there to learn the trade." He replied, shifting to sit on his legs.

"Niiiice." Only twelve-ish and the kid already had things figured out. Kinda had to respect that.

"How did they get you two?" He asked.

"We were sent to salvage whatever data was left on your ship. The fuckers must've been waiting for someone else to come by." I reasoned. Another known fact about me: I'm not the most tactful person, not even around kids. Whatever, according to our people's records, he was an adult now. He could deal with it.

"Oh... I'm sorry." He looked down.

"It's not your fault." I reassured him. I looked over at Del, who was still listening to us, and then back at the kid.

"Who exactly are these guys?" I asked. If I lived another 500,000 years, I'd never forget this moment right here. The kid blinked and tilted his head as if the answer was obvious.

"You didn't see them?" He asked a bit incredulously.

"No, why?"

"This is going to sound impossible... They're the last of the Ulara." He didn't expect us to believe him and he was right to think that way.

"'Last of the Ulara'? The Ulara went extinct like half a million years ago. There is no 'last of the Ulara'." I argued. There was just no way it was them. The Ulara were the last race my people ever fought against before we swore to peace.

I don't really remember exactly what happened. I just know that we did something that wiped them all out. It wasn't really intentional though...

"That's what I thought too until they seized my transport and made me work for them." He countered, "I know it's them. I learned about them when I was studying our history. I can recognize Ularan technology when I see it and I know an Ularan when I see one. Plus, they'll tell anyone who'll listen that they're the only surviving members of their species and that they plan on expanding."

"Oh, c'mon! That doesn't prove anything! Some of the Ularan technology did survive the war and there's more than enough information about them floating around the cosmos." Yeah, I'm also known to be stubborn about things I don't readily believe. The Ularans surviving the war is just one of those things.

"Are you actually suggesting that these guys are just pretending to be Ularan?" He asked, giving me the same look I used to give people on Earth when I argued the existence of their God. This made Del chuckle. Of course he would find me arguing with a kid funny at a time like this...

"It has the advantage of being actually possible, even likely. An extinct species doesn't just show up out of nowhere after 500,000 years and start kidnapping people." I retorted.

"You'll know when you see them." He said, his voice lowering. "No one else could possibly use their exo-suits."

He obviously didn't want to argue this any further and he did grab my attention at that point.

"He has a point there." Del said, finally joining the conversation. "Their exo-suits were bio-genetically programmed to both activate and function when in contact with Ularan DNA. Only Ularan DNA."

It was to prevent anyone else from being able to use their technology. I remembered that the suits made them look intimidating and allowed them to survive in practically any environment. So far, no other technology could match it, that we knew of. It was like a second skin for them and part of the reason why the technology died with them. Or so I thought...

"You saw them in their exo-suits?" I asked, now a little less dismissive.

The kid nodded. "I saw them without the suits too. There's no mistaking them. They're Ularan."

I paused, not really knowing what to think. "How is that possible? If they are Ularan, how did they survive?"

"Why don't you ask them yourself? I'm sure they'd be eager to tell you..." He moved to sit with his side against the wall, his back facing the door. We all fell silent after that, none of us wanting to talk about the Ulara anymore. Well, I didn't at least. If we really were prisoners of the Ulara, we were so fucked...

"What's your name, kid?" I asked, wanting a different topic.

"Asxtuathoael..."

I nodded a bit. "Do you mind if I call you Ash?"

"Knock yourself out." He turned to put his back against the wall.

"I'm Paul and this is Del." I introduced. Del waved a little at his introduction and Ash waved back with a little smirk on his face.

"'Paul'?" Ash inquired, raising a brow.

"It's a nickname a friend gave me. It's also a long fucking story..." I explained.

"Okay... Nice to meet you."

"You too." Del chimed. It became silent again for a while. We all just seemed content with just staring at the floor until Del switched back to English.

"You're thinking about them, aren't you?" He asked. He didn't mean the Ulara. He meant the girls I left behind back home. I always called them 'the girls', sometimes 'my girls'.

Tara and our daughter, Lilith...

Yeah I actually have a kid now. Did I forget to mention that? She wasn't planned or anything, (big surprise there, I know) but I'd be lying if I said I regretted it happening. It has its ups and downs, sure, but for the most part, having a kid is actually pretty nice. It's also indescribable, as cliche as that sounds.

"Yeah... This is the second time I just disappear on her. Now I do it to Lil' too. What am I supposed to say to them when we get back?" Yes, when we get back. I had to believe we were getting out of here at some point. I had to or we'd never leave...

"You'll figure it out when the time comes." Del tried to reassure me. "I know I've said this before, man, but you got it bad."

He's said it twice before. Once around the time he first met Tara when I brought her home with me and the second time when Lil' was three years old and we were just hanging out. It was his way of expressing how much it was obvious that I cared for them. I just smirked at that.

"Yeah, I know." I said, the smirk faded and I repeated it a little more somberly.

"I know..."

(Disclaimer: I don't own Paul or any characters created by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, but I do own Del, Ash and Lilith. Read &Review please!)