Ruin of Dragons Read online

  "This isn't going to be pretty," he said as he banked the ship horizontal and punched the thrusters. He aimed for the widest point of the opening and held his breath, wincing.

  There was an ugly squeal as two of the columns scraped across the top of the ship, but then they were through and on the other side. Aris leveled them out as they entered the next chamber, this one wide and low, with no columns but a row of enormous statues of seated kings on either side. It was an immense, dramatic chamber, but not near as encompassing as the great hall behind it.

  There was not, however, a similar colonnade on the opposite side. The chamber seemed to simply end. "I see a wall," Aris said, panic creeping into his voice. "You said there was an entry!"

  "There is," Voss said. "Don't slow down."

  Another alert pinged as their pursuer made it through the colonnade behind them and started firing. Vermithrax shook as it took plasma fire to the rear, mostly protected by the dragonscale armor.

  "Voss?" Aris prompted.

  "Don't slow down," she repeated. "Trust me!"

  She readjusted the wing cannons as Vermithrax continued to take fire, but instead of aiming them at the ship gaining ground behind them, she swiveled them to point forward.

  "Get ready to pull a slingshot," she said, her voice calm.

  She waited, watching the wall approach at a frightening rate, and Aris powered forward, trying to see where this was going, his hand hovering over the braking controls as they flew right up to the end of the chamber.

  "Voss!" he repeated.

  "Now!" she shouted, and Aris hauled back on the yoke, firing the topside thrusters as the brakes fired, killing their forward momentum and dropping the ship straight down.

  They dropped through where the floor should have been into a recessed area that Aris hadn't seen, a diagonal space with a wide stairway that descended down from the floor of the antechamber to a lower entryway that rose into view as the ship came to an unceremonious halt.

  There was a sudden tremendous crash as their pursuer, unable to brake or change direction as quickly, piled headlong into the end wall of the chamber above them, breaking apart in a spectacular fireball. Aris snapped out of his surprise and punched the ship forward, barely avoiding the falling wreckage of the pursuing ship as it fell into the stairway opening behind them.

  The entry chamber was tight and did not extend a great distance, but Voss was already firing their cannons at the far wall, and as they flew toward it, a bright circle of light appeared as the stone fell away in front of them.

  Vermithrax cleared the opening and was out in open sun again, and Aris found himself blinking against the glare. They were in another section of what looked like the same canyon, closer to ground level. Aris swiveled the ship around to get a better look, checking the system monitor.

  "Looks like we're clear," Gareth said. "No more tail."

  "Good," Aris said, pulling the ship around and heading for the upper atmosphere. As he adjusted course, approaching the cloud layer, he turned back to Voss. "Might want to get a message to Kale. If we're in the crosshairs now, someone may be about to pay him a visit too."

  He heard a sharp intake of breath from Mira as they passed through the cloud layer. "Or they're already here," she said.

  He turned forward to see a massive ship hanging in space just above the outer atmosphere. Bulky gray with red markings along the sides, it was massive and intimidating, with multiple levels, bristling with weapon emplacements and fighter launch bays standing ready.

  A completely unnecessary warning sounded on the tactical console, and three more marks showed up on the display, assault ships approaching from behind and on either side. Aris eased up on the controls as they were suddenly surrounded.

  A light flashed on the comm board. "Unidentified transport, this is Republic Carrier Kriton," a sharp voice said. "You are hereby ordered to stand down all engine and weapon systems and prepare to be boarded."

  Gareth frowned. "Are we not broadcasting…?"

  Mira checked her system monitor then shrugged. "Transponder's active," she said.

  "It's Frakes," Aris said, exhaling heavily. "She knows damn well it's us." He slapped at his consoles, killing power to the engines and reestablishing weapons hold. "All right, let's get ready to meet our guests."

  detour

  A rumble of thunder rolled across the mountains, between the intermittent flashes of electricity that illuminated the landscape. Petra looked around, taking a moment to watch it dance across the canyon. Lightning normally made her nervous, as it usually preceded thunderstorms that would wash down from the mountains in a torrent, but here she was strangely calm, despite standing seemingly in the midst of a large-scale display.

  Silhouetted against the strobing purple sky stood a hooded figure, now much closer, towering over her. Petra looked up as the figure turned, revealing a young woman of about twenty under the hood, with fair skin and wavy auburn hair. A soft smile spread across the woman's face as she extended her hand.

  Petra reached out to take it, and was surprised to see the small, slightly pudgy fingers of a five-year-old as she grasped the woman's hand. She could hear a pleasant voice speaking, but it was muffled as though she were hearing it through liquid. She stood on tiny tiptoes to get closer to the voice, but the woman suddenly stopped talking and looked up into the sky.

  In an instant the air around them was filled with a blinding light and a searing crackle of energy as a bolt of lightning struck down directly between them. Petra was startled, but her grip on the woman's hand held, and she marveled as the column of energy seemed to part around them, washing harmlessly over.

  The ground, however, was not so resistant, and a large fissure ruptured in the earth under their feet as the bolt struck, the crack of the rock splitting and the accompanying peal of thunder creating a shockwave that pushed Petra bodily backward and stunned her ears into sudden silence.

  Before she could attempt to sit up, the ground dropped out from under her as the section of the cliff edge where they had been standing began to crumble and slide down into the canyon. Petra's world spun sickeningly, and as she tried to reach out for something, anything, she caught a brief glimpse of a fluttering cloak far below her, disappearing into the shadowy darkness.

  "No!" Petra shouted, waking with a start and hitting her forehead against the supply crate suspended above her. She tried to grab for her head, blinking away tears, but couldn't seem to move beyond a slight wiggle, and settled instead for trying to lie still while the pain receded. After a minute, she opened her eyes and looked around, trying to remember where she actually was.

  As she became more fully awake, the sharp chill brought everything back. The cargo ship had taken off, angling up as it ascended through the buffeting atmosphere, and Petra had been jostled around, stumbling into the sides of stacked crates and generally fighting to keep her footing, finally finding a nook in the corner she could brace herself against. After a moment the ship's movement seemed to stabilize, and the floor under her leveled back out again. As the noise in the hold quieted back down to a dull vibration, Petra had begun looking around, trying to assess her situation.

  She was in what was not much more than a large steel room, the only openings being the large gate behind her and a single access door at the front of the hold. The three rows of cargo containers took up almost the entirety of the space, leaving only narrow walkways between and on either side. She had made a quick dash around the perimeter of the bay, looking for any other spaces or rooms and finding nothing, continually keeping a panicked eye on the front access door, afraid of someone coming in and discovering her.

  Finally, at the rear of the hold on the opposite side, she had found a small recessed alcove covered by a thick mesh web, where a smaller assortment of mismatched containers and other odds and ends were stored, out of the way of the main hold floor. It was larger than it
looked upon closer inspection, and the back half was deep in shadow.

  She had pulled aside the webbing and was able to crawl in, and with some difficulty had managed to wedge herself into the narrow space along the back edge behind the miscellaneous containers. It wasn't entirely comfortable, but she was out of the way and wouldn't be seen by anyone not kneeling down to floor level and peering directly in.

  She had lost track of how long she had lied there. The temperature in the hold had slowly dropped until Petra was shivering, wishing she had brought extra clothes with her, the metal alcove walls and hard containers affording little warmth despite the closed space. As time passed her limbs had begun to ache, and her inability to move more than a little gave only minimal relief and she began desperately hoping that their trip wouldn't last too much longer. Eventually, however, she had succumbed to her fatigue and fallen into a kind of fitful doze.

  It had been an errant supply crate, improperly secured and shaken loose by unexpected ship's movement, that had fallen to the floor in a clatter, causing Petra to wake with a shout, hitting her head on the container suspended from the alcove ceiling.

  After a minute of letting the pain in her forehead subside, she looked around, once again fully awake and on high alert. Ignoring the creeping numbness in her legs, she tensed as she tried to shove herself farther back into the alcove. The fallen container could have attracted attention, and while she was relatively well hidden, she didn't feel like it was enough.

  She froze as voices could be heard approaching, her heart beating up into her throat, and she tried to lie as still as humanly possible. She heard the front bay door open, and what sounded like two pairs of footsteps making their way toward the back of the hold. They stopped near where the loose cargo container had fallen, and she could hear sounds of shuffling and metal scraping against metal.

  "Gimme a hand with this, will you?" a voice said, low and gruff. There was more shuffling, a couple of grunts, then the sound of the cargo container being slid into place, followed by several snaps and a long exhale. "Damn ground crews," the voice continued, "getting sloppier every season."

  "They're outliers, what did you expect?" a second voice responded, this one higher pitched and hoarse.

  "I expect competence," Gruff said, and the footsteps continued as the two walked around the end of the stack. "It's bad enough I gotta go out of my way to get to this backwards hole, now I gotta reroute away from Barrast and throw off my whole schedule."

  We're rerouting? Petra thought, panic starting to set in, but the thought was interrupted as a pair of boots walked by the alcove where Petra was hiding, and she held her breath. "Those Aelden stiffs better not give me any trouble or I swear I'll light them all up," Gruff continued.

  A second set of boots stepped in front of the alcove, stopping to turn in Petra's direction, and she found herself tensing to spring, though where she thought she could possibly go she had no idea.

  "At least they're competent," Hoarse responded, and after a moment it became apparent that the second man was rooting around in a storage locker above the alcove. The sound of a panel snapped shut, the boots continued on their way and Petra exhaled.

  "Yeah, but they're looking down their noses at me the whole time," Gruff said as they walked on, and it sounded like they were checking the rest of the stacks in the line. "And I'll be roasted before I ever get more than scale commission out of them."

  "Be glad the pointy-ears know what commission is," Hoarse said. "Just try wringing any extra money out of the dwarves."

  There was a short bark of laughter as the footsteps continued forward. "Oh god, don't even get me started—" Gruff's voice was cut off as the front bay door closed with a sharp hiss.

  Petra shut her eyes, her breathing returning to normal, and she started to feel the prickly numbness in her limbs once again. She shifted her position, moving her legs as much as she could to try and coax some circulation through them, inhaling sharply as her bare calves came in contact with the cold metal floor.

  She tried to make herself comfortable as she settled in for the next stretch, but it turned out she didn't have long to wait as the room soon started vibrating, the floor under her gradually shifting its angle as they entered the gravity well of the planet below. A dull roar began to swell, filling the room with noise, and the floor started to shake under her in earnest as the ship entered the atmosphere. She brought her arms up around her head as the various containers attached to the alcove webbing started shifting, one of them coming loose from its hook and tumbling over onto Petra's stomach. Wincing, she shoved it aside, wedging it in place as best she could, and tried to lean against the rest to keep from getting battered by any more loose objects.

  A few more jarring moments passed, then the ride started smoothing out and the vibration dropped back down to a more even level. Petra could feel the vessel slowing gradually, and after what felt like a couple of banking turns everything finally leveled out. With one last abrupt drop, it finally came to a halt.

  Groans and creaks could be felt through the floor as the ship settled, hisses of escaped gas could be heard below, and the loading gate began unlocking with a sequence of loud clanks. Petra looked out, realized she was about to have an opening and started scrambling out of her alcove, hoping she could make it to the gate and out of the ship before any of the crew made it back to the bay.

  She dashed to the back of the hold and crouched down, waiting for the loading gate to begin its slow ascent. "Come on," she said, looking over her shoulder to watch toward the front entrance, anxious to be off and away from the ship.

  A long hiss sounded as the seal released, and a bright seam appeared as the gate started to open, revealing sunlight reflecting up from the ground below. Petra tensed as the gate rose, and as soon as there was a big enough gap, she slid her legs over the edge and dropped down to the landing pad.

  Petra squinted in the afternoon brightness as she crouched in the shadow of the rear edge of the freighter. Above her head, the loading ramp began to extend out from the bay opening, and directly ahead of her sat a wide opening that was the loading entrance to a large silver building that seemed to be reflecting all sunlight back in her direction.

  Through the glare she saw movement as several figures emerged from the darkness of the loading entrance and started toward the ship. Petra was immediately up and making her way the opposite direction toward the front of the vessel, keeping close to the lower hull and watching behind her to see if anyone was following. She made it to the front, ducked through the gap between the body and the downturned engine module and was about to bolt when she finally brought her eyes forward and came to an abrupt halt, her breath catching in her throat.

  Mere feet ahead, the landing pad simply ended, with nothing standing between her and a hundred-foot plummet to the ground below. Gasping sharply, she threw herself back against the landing skid pylons at the front corner of the ship and shut her eyes, trying to steady her suddenly lurching stomach. She took a few deep breaths and slowly opened her eyes.

  Her breathing quickened, and she reached out behind her to find secure hand holds within the hydraulics of the landing skid, not even noticing the metal was still hot to the touch. The landing pad was not much more than a large gray circle, suspended in midair high above the edge of an expansive deciduous forest. Petra was close enough to the edge that she could see almost straight down to a wide winding river that stretched off to a snowcapped mountain range at the horizon. The forest snugged up against the bank on one side, mirrored in the glassy surface of the winding architecture that followed the flow of the river not far from the opposite bank.

  Petra's eyes followed, marveling at how the city seemed to stretch on for miles, but didn't appear to intrude upon the natural landscape, only following the contour of the edge of the forest, and even arcing up and over bands of trees that crossed the river and extended into the perimeter of the city.
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br />   The buildings themselves were like nothing Petra had ever seen, dramatic sweeping curved surfaces of glass and metal that rose impossible heights into the sky, echoing the rise and fall of the undulating foothills leading to the mountains in the distance. The entire city stood like a graceful extension of the surrounding environment, seemingly grown out of the forest below. And to the immediate right, an immense domed cylindrical structure dominated the foreground, with a line of flat ovoid platforms extending from the upper levels like leaves around a wide-stemmed plant.

  The platform she stood on was situated at the center, and if the other platforms in the line were any indication, there was nothing at all between them and the river far below. As Petra was reminded of this, her grip tightened, and she looked up, attempting to calm her breathing.

  "Are you lost?"

  Petra gasped, startled, and turned to see a man in a blue-gray uniform approaching along the side of the freighter.

  "Stay back!" Petra said, a note of panic in her voice.

  The man slowed, raising his hands. "It's all right," he said in a slightly accented voice. "I just want to help."

  Petra looked back up again, closing her eyes. "I just mean I might throw up on you."

  The man stopped, smiling. "Fair enough," he said. "You don't look like part of the ship's crew. Do you mind if I ask what you're doing here?"

  "Right now?" Petra said, studying the rivets along the underside of the right wing of the freighter. "Trying not to move. It's a really long way down."

  The man laughed, his voice gentle. "You don't have to worry about that," he said, walking toward her again. "There are repulsor fields in place to prevent accidental falls."

  "I'm going to pretend I know what that is," she said.

  "You look terrified," he continued, reaching Petra and putting himself between her and the edge of the platform. "Let me take you inside, okay?"