Ruin of Dragons Page 11

  Aris winced, chiding himself for not paying better attention. He started to turn but froze at the sound of a weapon clicking.

  "Nope," the voice said. "Hands where I can see them."

  Aris frowned. The voice seemed familiar, but he put his hands out beside him anyway.

  "Turn around," the voice ordered. "Slowly."

  Aris smiled suddenly. "Commander Frakes," he said. "Is this any way to treat a former officer?"

  He turned to face a stern woman with short cropped blonde hair streaked through with white, wearing a black ranger halfcoat and pointing a rather intimidating sidearm his direction. Steely eyes glinted at him, then widened as recognition crossed her face.

  "Cobalt?" she said, and there was no mistaking the surprise in her voice. She rolled her eyes, lowered her weapon and slid it back into the holster on her thigh, leaving it loose. "What are you doing out here?"

  "Nice to see you too," Aris said, lowering his hands. "I'm just here on an informal investigation. On behalf of the Kingsguard."

  Frakes scoffed. "Heard you joined up with the Sanctuary folks, though I didn't figure you for a conservationist." She eyed the gray longcoat he still wore. "But since when did the Kingsguard become an arm of the Ranger Corps?"

  Aris looked around at the ash covered streets. "When our dragons started taking part in your domestic incursions."

  "Don't be stupid; dragons didn't have any part in this."

  Aris crossed his arms. "Really."

  Frakes looked smug. "Did you forget everything? This is classic diversionary tactics: make the event look like a natural disaster to create a false trail."

  "Except it's all wrong," Aris countered. "These people weren't trying to simulate a dragon attack; they were using one as the weapon."

  Frakes shook her head. "Impossible. No way dragons were involved."

  Aris grinned. She was still stubborn as ever. "Then I'm sure you won't mind enlightening me," he said.

  "Sorry Cobalt, you know the rules," she said, barely hiding her derision. "If you're not officially part of this investigation then I'm not at liberty to share information with you."

  "You know me better than that, Lara," Aris said. "I'm not asking you for forensic data, I'm interested in your hunch."

  Frakes' expression softened slightly as she mulled this over. Nodding, she looked back up at him. "City shields were active throughout the night," she said. "No maintenance downtime or power surges were in the system logs. No dragons could've gotten through."

  "Then what's your explanation for the damage?"

  She turned and looked out into the distance, quiet for a long moment. "I don't know," she said finally, her voice soft. She turned back to Aris, shrugging. "That's what our arson team is working on."

  "Arson?" It was Aris's turn to scoff. "Maybe. The sweep pattern seems to fit with a low atmosphere strafe, but look at this," he pointed to a nearby stone column. "No current form of incendiary, including chemical reactants, affects stone like this. The surfaces of these pillars have been melted into glass. Only dragonfire does that."

  Her expression hardened. "Then someone's made advances in weapons tech that's going to make all our lives more difficult."

  "Synthetic dragonfire is a myth," Voss's voice called out from behind them. Frakes hadn't heard the dwarf's approach and she spun suddenly, drawing her weapon in one fluid motion.

  Voss didn't flinch, continuing toward Aris without slowing down. "Nice coat," she said to Frakes as she walked by.

  "Voss?" Aris prompted as Frakes lowered her weapon.

  "Sensor sweep's negative, Cap," Voss said, stepping up and handing over her handheld. "No life signs."

  "Rescue teams finished combing the area yesterday," Frakes said. "Pulled out everyone still alive."

  "No doubt," Aris said, looking over the data then handing it back to Voss. "But we're not scanning for survivors."

  Frakes looked irritated. "Fine, play your game." A sudden crunching noise drew their attention as another ranger stepped out from around the corner with Gareth at gunpoint. Frakes appraised the newcomer then looked at Aris, who seemed to be trying to hide a grin. She shook her head and addressed her ranger. "Lieutenant?"

  "Found this one sneaking around a few blocks over, Commander."

  Gareth looked indignant. "I was not sneaking," he said, stepping away from the ranger. "I was following."

  "He with you?" Frakes asked Aris, who simply nodded. She motioned for the ranger to stand down, then flashed a very impatient smile. "Take your circus and leave. I've got work to do."

  Aris saluted. "Good luck, Commander," he said as he turned and started walking, Voss and Gareth stepping in beside him.

  "Keep out of trouble, Cobalt," Frakes called after him. "I don't particularly want to haul you in."

  Gareth glanced over his shoulder as they walked. Frakes and her subordinate were conferring over a handheld scanner, paying them no more attention. "She seems nice," he said as the group turned west and started back toward the edge of town. "Tell me again why she divorced you?"

  Aris smirked. "What did you learn?"

  "Your former compatriots have no idea what they're dealing with."

  "Tell me something I don't know."

  "This is not the fourth colony hit," Gareth said, his voice hardening. "It's the ninth."

  Aris looked up at him, surprised.

  "The first five were outliers, completely decimated, the media's been clamped down," Gareth continued. "And it's only been Republic or Republic-allied colonies that have been attacked, which makes it start to look a bit political, don't you think?"

  Aris frowned. "That's not encouraging. I really hope that doesn't mean she's right about it being synthesized dragonfire. Did you buy that at all?"

  "It's a great theory," Gareth said. "Except all the techies on Avernus have been working on exactly that for the last decade, and they're no closer to cracking it now."

  Aris nodded, breathing out a bit. "Hardly surprising. Took them forever just to replicate the scale armor, and that still has issues."

  "You mean the fact that it's less dangerous to harvest scales from actual dragons?" Mira said, suddenly in step beside Voss.

  "Don't do that," Aris said, startled. "Make some noise when you walk."

  The elf flashed a sly smile, pulling the memory unit out of a belt compartment and handing it to him. "Thought you might want to see this."

  Aris looked at it, turning the small black rectangle over in his hands. Aside from some heat blistering on the label, it looked undamaged. "Where's it from?" he asked.

  "Transmitter tower on the building I was watching from," she said. "It was knocked out of alignment, so it may not have been pointing the right direction. But the unit itself seemed relatively unscathed, so some of the security feed might still be intact."

  Aris handed it back to her. "Nice work," he said. "Did any of Frakes' people see you?"

  Mira raised an eyebrow. "Did you?"

  Voss laughed as Aris simply smiled. "Point," he said.

  They made it back to the landing site without incident, and as Aris started warming up ship systems, Mira connected the memory unit to an expansion slot on the communications panel. Bringing up the data interface on her monitor, she accessed the unit's contents, hoping to find them intact.

  She was not disappointed. The root directory opened, and Mira scanned the list, surprised she was even able to read it. "This must be from a privately-owned array," she murmured to herself. "There's not any encryption active…" She opened the directory for the capture feed, and found the file backups for the last four days. She selected the one for two days prior, and opened the file in a player, maximizing it to full screen.

  The view was that of a short stretch of street on the west side of the building the tower was connected to, including both corners at either end
of the block. It was dark, the capture starting at local midnight. "What time did the attack start?" Mira asked.

  "Two, give or take," Aris answered. Mira forwarded the feed, watching what little traffic was on the street speed into flashing streaks.

  Aris leaned closer. "Looks like we'll get a pretty good view," he said.

  The image flashed white, then went abruptly dark. Mira reversed the feed a bit, then let it play out at normal speed. The street was empty and silent, and Mira watched intently, hearing nothing but their breathing as they sat riveted to the screen. An interminable moment passed, and just when she was about ready to forward it a little more, the image changed.

  A golden light gradually filled the screen, like the glow of a sunrise, casting long shadows down the empty street. It rose in intensity for another moment, then without warning a wall of roiling flame swept from one side of the screen to the other, bright orange and purple, flowing like liquid and filling the chasm of space between buildings in an instant. The screen flashed a blinding white, then darkened to an indistinct gray. The focus adjusted, and Mira realized the array had been upended and they were now looking up at the underside of the tower's apex, with dark sky showing in two triangular gaps in the upper and left edges of the screen.

  "Well that's rather unhelpful," Aris said, sitting back in his chair.

  Mira let the feed play, hoping for any other clues, but other than the occasional flashing of nearby flame, the screen remained more or less dark and indistinct.

  "It's not much," Mira said. "But I don't think there's any doubt it's dragonfire, even without a visual on the source."

  Aris nodded, his mind made up. "I'm going after this one," he announced.

  "And the ranger emerges," Gareth said.

  "This will likely get us all in trouble," Aris continued. "Possibly fired. Any objections?"

  "We are Kingsguard," Mira said. "If this doesn't fall under our scope, then who are we?"

  "Exactly," he said, looking at each of the others in turn.

  For a long moment no one spoke. Gareth broke the silence, raising a fist in salute and saying simply, "To ruin."

  Aris looked back at him, a thin smile drawing across his face. "To ruin," he repeated, echoing an old Kingsguard battle cry. Mira and Voss both nodded, the dwarf grinning, adding their voices as well.

  "To ruin."

  Aris exhaled, turning his attention back to the screen. "Would Frakes have a copy of this?"

  Mira shrugged. "Maybe. Aside from the few days' backup on internal memory, they usually upload directly to a remote network. This one may have lost connection during the attack, but I think we have to assume that if we're seeing it, so can they."

  "Fair enough," Aris said, glancing over Mira's shoulder at the feed still playing behind her. "Hang on, what was that?"

  She turned back to the monitor and paused the recording, reversing it a few seconds. Passing between the gaps in the tower supports, a series of glowing shapes were briefly visible. "Ship's drive trail," Mira said. "It's too dark to make anything else out." She reversed the feed again and paused at the point the glow emerged from behind the tower, revealing five points of light in a triangular pattern.

  Aris frowned. "Well … we know it's a five-engine ship," he said, "though that's not much of a start."

  "Wait, I recognize that," Voss said, leaning over Mira's shoulder to get a better look.

  "Which part?" Mira asked.

  "The drive arrangement," Voss clarified, pointing at the screen. "Three main engines in delta configuration with a secondary on either side." She turned to Aris. "That's a dwarf Falke-class carrier," she said, and there was no mistaking her surprise. "They've been known to show up from time to time outside the Vorsk fleet, but it's very rare."

  "This just gets more confusing," Aris said as Voss sat back down behind Mira. "I can't see dwarves being involved in this kind of thing; they don't care at all about outsiders."

  Voss nodded, agreeing. "More specifically," she said, "what they care about is keeping those outsiders outside. Dwarven military themselves hardly leaves home."

  Aris looked back at the frozen image on the screen. "Of course there's no real way to know if they were even involved, but it seems like too strange of a coincidence for it not to be related." His face tightened. "We need to find out who that ship belongs to."

  "Good luck," Gareth said. "Your ranger friends probably have all of Barrast airspace records bottled up tight."

  Aris turned to him, gesturing to the monitor. "Do you really think that ship will show up on a traffic manifest?"

  Gareth shrugged. "Not legitimately. But it may have come in under a decoy entry."

  Aris was silent for a moment, massaging his temple. He was thinking about this the wrong way. "That won't get us very far, and if I know Frakes, she'll already be following that lead. No," he turned back to Gareth. "We need to go at this from the other direction. If that is a Dwarf ship," he seemed to brace himself, "then we need to go to the source."

  Gareth wasn't sure that was such a good idea. "Um, did you miss the part about keeping outsiders out?" he asked.

  But Aris wasn't listening; he was focused directly on Voss. Gareth looked from one to the other. A barely visible mixture of anxiety and apprehension crossed Voss's face, and there seemed to be an unspoken conversation going on between the two.

  Aris spoke first. "Will you arrange a meeting?"

  Mira seemed equally confused, and turned to Voss, concern on her own face. "Meeting with who?"

  Voss looked at her, but didn't answer, the conflict in her expression becoming more evident. Voss then looked at Aris. "You're sticking their necks out on this one."

  Aris nodded. Voss took a deep breath, forcing herself to relax slightly. She knew he wouldn't be asking lightly, but also wouldn't force her hand, and his expression seemed to echo this. Vulnerability was not something Voss was used to dealing with openly, and the thought of suddenly sharing this particular part of her past was as uncomfortable as an exposed nerve.

  She turned back to Mira, whose face was a question mark, but Voss was relieved not to see any hint of suspicion or accusation there. "Suppose you were going to find out eventually," Voss said, her voice small.

  The elf reached down and took Voss's hand in hers. The simple gesture told her more than anything Mira could have said aloud.

  Voss took a deep breath. Turning to Aris, she nodded. "All right."

  luck

  "I don't know how I let you talk me into this," Rowan said as the carriage came to a halt. Petra thanked the driver, stepped down to the ground and walked around to the back to help Rowan down. "It's simple," she said as he extricated himself from the nook between crates of produce. "I didn't give you the option of saying no."

  Rowan stepped to the ground, brushing dirt off himself. "Maybe I just don't think you'll get very far," he said with a bemused smirk.

  Petra didn't believe that for a second. "Then why'd you come with me at all?" she teased.

  Rowan sighed. "You didn't give me the option of saying no." He paused as they looked around. They were standing at the side of the main thoroughfare coming into the north end of Weyland, the largest city to the immediate south of the Kur Mountains. A bustling port city, Weyland had become a center of commerce, with a rapidly growing shipping depot, a sprawling uptown market and a surprising amount of sophistication for an area that was still firmly entrenched in its rural heritage. "What was I supposed to do?" he continued. "You were going to do this whether I came along or not, so I might as well be here, right? Least I can do is try to keep you out of trouble."

  Petra turned to him. "That all sounds very noble, but you and I both know you've had a crush on me since we were nine and you'd do anything if I asked you nicely."

  "That's not fair," Rowan said.

  She grinned, only half serious, then star
ted making her way into town, with Rowan in step beside. "But I'm glad you're along to try and keep me out of trouble," she said.

  "Emphasis on try," Rowan muttered as he tried to keep pace. They had already passed through the outskirts, a sparse collection of cottages and specialty shops, and were approaching the edge of the city's main open market. The sky was still bright, but the afternoon sun was starting to dip low, casting long shadows from the buildings on the right, and city crews were already lighting the lanterns that dotted many of the street corners.

  The farther in they ventured, the more variety of places they passed. Baked goods, produce, livestock, wearables, tools, and artisanal objects of every conceivable purpose could be found in a steadily increasing array of shops, storefronts, kiosks and carts, all wedged haphazardly into every available space along the winding main street that extended well into the heart of the uptown district.

  Rowan watched as they walked, weaving in and around the shifting streams of people, trying to make sense of where they were headed. Passing a small sidewalk cafe, he caught the glance of a man sitting alone at one of the front tables and was slightly unnerved when the man turned and continued to watch as they walked past. Rowan turned back to Petra, but she seemed focused on a determined direction, paying no attention to the myriad of shapes and colors pressing in on them from the sides of the street.

  He glanced behind them and thought he saw the man amongst the crowd, walking their direction, in the process missing what Petra was pointing at. "See?" she was saying, gesturing to the southwest. Rowan turned back just in time to see the bulky shape of a large freight transport ship drop down in the distance, disappearing behind the line of rooftops. "I told you."

  Rowan looked behind them, scanning the passing faces, frowning. Whoever the man had been, he seemed to have disappeared. "What?" he said, trying to split his attention. "Sorry…" And an instant later he caught sight of the man again, now closer.

  Petra seemed to recognize his distraction. "What are you looking at?"

  "I think that guy's following us," Rowan said, gesturing behind them.