Ruin of Dragons Read online

  Aris was waiting. "Not this time," he said as he fired the attitude thrusters and cut open the topside vents, spinning the ship backward and blasting the creature with a face full of coolant exhaust. The dragon thrashed, trying to change direction as the ship rotated down out of its path. Aris watched the horizon disappear from sight as the ship tumbled backward. The creature fell back into view as the nose pointed up, and Aris punched the forward braking thrusters, putting more distance between it and accelerating the spin. The opposite horizon came into view above, and once again the ship was pointed down toward the surface below.

  The light on the engine control panel finally flashed green, and Aris kicked in the main thrusters. Vermithrax lurched downward violently as the engines roared to life, diving straight toward the planet and leaving the dragon flailing in its wash. "That's my girl!" Aris laughed, patting the center console. The ground below was now leaping up to meet him, and Aris was leaning right into it.

  The creature reoriented itself, realized its quarry was fleeing, and dove directly after. Straightening out and pulling its legs and wings up under itself, it dropped like an arrow straight down, following in Vermithrax's wake. Aris kept the dragon in his external sensors, continuing to watch the ground fly up even faster. He smiled tightly, only needing to hold on for one more minute.

  Gareth's voice came across. "There, she's chasing you. Happy now?"

  "Ecstatic," Aris said, grinning. "Because now it's your turn. Heads up, I just hit her with three kinds of backwash, so she's pissed."

  "Lovely."

  "Pulling a slingshot on this one," Aris said. "Hope you're ready."

  • • •

  Gareth stood at the edge of a circular clearing less than half a mile from the south edge of town, inside the northern fringe of the forest. "Copy that," he said. "Bring her in." Across from him to the right and left, under the opposite edge of the clearing stood Mira and Voss, helmeted and standing at the ready.

  And directly between them, toward the horizon, Vermithrax fell out of the sky. Gareth watched the ship plummet, the lean spear shape of the dragon lancing down behind it. At the last possible second, Aris pulled the ship up, firing the repulsors and attitude thrusters in tandem to bring the craft sharply level with the tops of the trees. The dragon caught the abrupt change in direction almost too late and spread its wings to slow its fall, knocking limbs off the tallest trees as it swooped up to resume its pursuit.

  "Places everyone," Gareth said as the ship angled directly for their clearing. He dropped his goggles down over his eyes and stepped out into the open, extending his staff and pointing it up to where the creature's path would lead, waiting. As the vessel and its pursuer drew nearer, he heard Aris's voice. "All right, on my mark: three, two, one—"

  "Showtime," Gareth breathed, thumbing a trigger on the hilt of his staff.

  With a loud crack, a blinding flash of energy shot from the end of the staff into the sky. At the same instant, Aris fired his upper attitude and braking thrusters full, killing his forward momentum and dropping Vermithrax dead straight down, disappearing into the trees. The dragon, caught unaware, soared right over, looking down belatedly as the ship fell out from under it. Lifting its head back up, it caught a face full of Gareth's flash round. It was little more than a firework, designed to irritate and distract, but it hit the creature directly in the eyes, which was the insulting slap in the face on top of an already seething temperament that diverted the dragon's focus away from Aris to land squarely on Gareth.

  "Nice shot," Aris's voice said in his ear.

  Gareth smiled, bracing himself as the dragon approached alarmingly fast, a deep thrumming sound resonating through the quiet space with each beat of its great leathery wings. The creature dropped straight out of the sky, landing in the center of the clearing with a tremendous impact that shook the earth. All was suddenly silent as it stared down at him, seeming to size him up.

  Gareth didn't move. He needed the creature to come in closer.

  It stood there, joints creaking as it shifted its weight, and he could feel the tremors through the ground.

  Dragons were an evolutionary marvel, an ancient creature born out of an earlier geological age, when younger planets were purer in their mineral composition, and organic life had not yet developed past its rudimentary multicellular phase. Originating from a world long since lost to legend, the creatures had somehow scattered across the sector and were typically found either deep underground, close to a planet's mantle, or outside of a world's atmosphere, in asteroid belts or planetary rings, subsisting among proto-planetary material with high mineral and metallic content.

  It was this ancient biochemical makeup that gave the dragons as a species their resiliency and longevity. It was also, ironically, what had led to the problem humans as a species had been subjected to when sharing an environment with them. Dragons' near invulnerability had allowed them to live past their evolutionary usefulness, well past the middle periods of biological expansion when elder creatures of their sort would have started dying off naturally.

  When the group had received their orders, the spec list read like a bad dream. This particular creature was not only much larger than usual, but one of the oldest specimens on record, and they had scrambled to prepare the ship on their way, reinforcing the lift girders in the containment hold and increasing the chemical concentration in their cryo storage bays. Counter to conventional biology, dragon physiology only toughened with age, so they arrived expecting a difficult assignment to begin with, but what stood before him now was by far the largest and most intimidating specimen he had ever witnessed.

  It was easily ninety feet long nose to tail, the head alone larger than Gareth himself. The jaw tapered to a curved point like the beak of a great bird of prey, with edges like serrated blades. A network of craggy black scales began at the jaw and ran in rivulets that snaked their way back from the head, chasing the length of the body all the way to the series of spikes at the end of the tail. The scales over the brow flattened and extended to points, forming a twin ridge that ran to the back of the head and continued down the spine. Its glassy eyes were small spheres of red that glowed faintly from within, like portals into the dragon's molten core. The heat coming off the creature was palpable, and Gareth noticed faint wisps of steam coming from the moisture on the ground, puffing up between its clawed toes as it shifted its stance.

  Without warning, the creature's hind legs flexed, propelling it abruptly forward. In three swift strides it covered the distance, but Gareth held his ground, throwing his hand up in front of him. To the dragon this show of defiance was unexpected and confusing, and it stopped short, coming within a hair's breadth of knocking him over. It paused as it seemed to reevaluate whether or not Gareth was an actual threat.

  That pause was all he needed. With a smooth, almost imperceptible motion, Gareth extended his arm and brought his hand into contact with the top of the creature's snout.

  And everything froze.

  Gareth opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by a smoky red-black haze, blurry like clouded liquid. He concentrated, trying to make sense of the swirling cacophony of dark color pulsating around him. Sound was equally indistinct, and though he thought he caught snatches of voices or calls of animals, he was submerged in a mostly muddled hum of low noise.

  There was nothing but the dark undulating void of the dragon's mind.

  This was always a tricky process, one he had not yet sufficiently mastered, but each attempt was a bare improvement over the last. With physical contact, he was using his own bioelectric energy to tap into the creature's neural pathways. It was a tenuous connection at best, like plugging an external drive into a foreign operating system. Dragons' biochemistry operated on an entirely different wavelength, and though Gareth seemed to have gained access, he was trying to make sense of a mass of information without a translator.

  He tried to concen
trate, to bring something into focus. He had made a connection to the dragon on a fundamental neural level, and the creature seemed to sense this. He just had to find the right pathway, the common ground he could use to communicate.

  A dark shadowy shape slowly became visible in front of him, and as he focused it coalesced into the form of the dragon itself, still standing silent before him. His hand was still held out in front of him, fingers still lightly resting against the creature's nose. The deep red haze surrounding them began to shift and shimmer, taking on a slightly more definite form. As he watched, he could start to make out shapes, hints of mass, glimpses of light and shadow. He began to feel like he was standing back in the meadow, surrounded by forest with the spire of the mountain in the distance, but it seemed different, darker and rockier.

  Gareth looked up into the dragon's eyes. It was trying to show him something. He could feel emotion coming from the creature, raw and powerful, and Gareth concentrated harder trying to hang on to the connection. The surroundings continued to coalesce, growing redder and hotter. There was a sulfur smell in the air and he could feel his eyes starting to water. A sense of familiarity seemed to flow from the creature, and suddenly Gareth understood. He was seeing memories. Hazy, indistinct, no more than mere glimpses, but potent.

  He was being shown where the dragon was from – when it was from, an earlier epoch of the world, harsh and volcanic. "You're even older than we thought," Gareth said, trying desperately to convey the emotion and intent of his words across to the creature. "You've seen this world change, watched the climate grow cool, watched life develop. Seen your resources disappear."

  Gareth looked up into the creature's eyes, trying to project as much strength and trust as possible. "This world has left you behind. Let us help. We can take you somewhere you can thrive, an environment especially suited for you."

  There was a hardness behind the creature's eyes. The red haze surrounding them became indistinct again, swirling angrily. Gareth set his teeth, focusing harder. He could never fully tell if he was getting through to the creatures he connected with. Dragons were by nature stubborn and this tactic seldom if ever paid off. Each one was different, with its own unique but equally roiling emotional state. All seemed to be equally territorial, however, and this one was no exception. They never wanted to leave, despite having been encroached upon and supplanted by the changing environment. Indeed, in the four years Gareth had been doing this, only one single specimen had conceded, allowing itself to be transported voluntarily. Still, he felt he had to try.

  The predominant emotion he came up against the most was distrust. "Please," he urged. "I'm telling you the truth. Can you not see—"

  The dragon didn't move, but the image changed abruptly. Amid the red haze, Gareth had the impression of a battle, low rumbling shapes rolling across the land, noisy flying metallic beasts, faceless men in great lines, all punctuated with a ceaseless concussive sound that pounded against the inside of his skull, all conveying one thing.

  Pain.

  "Oh god," Gareth breathed, realizing what it was he was seeing. "We're not the first team you've met." The dragon had lay dormant for more than four centuries, which meant the last time it had encountered the Kingsguard, it would not have been the small, surgical strike team primed for extraction—

  It would have been a full military incursion.

  "I am so sorry," Gareth attempted. "The Kingsguard was a different entity back then. We didn't understand, we didn't know what you were, what you needed—"

  The imagery changed again, growing even more indistinct, but he heard the whinny and hoof falls of horses, the ring of steel, caught the glint of sunlight reflecting off armor. And in that moment, Gareth knew he had lost. This creature had been present since the very beginning, had seen their entire bloody history.

  Gareth made one final plea, though there was little hope behind it. "That isn't us," he said firmly. "That's not who we are now, we're not barbarians on horseback swinging swords around anymore. Please believe we're here to help. This is the best for all involved, especially you. It'll be fast, painless, and when you wake up, you'll be in a new home, your own world." Gareth's voice rose as he poured every ounce of assurance into his thoughts as he could muster. "You've made it this far. Hell, you've survived us for as long as we've been around. We're just trying to ensure you'll continue to, even after we're gone. Please. Let us help." He looked up into the eyes, hoping to see some spark of agreement, some hint of understanding, but found nothing.

  In answer, the dragon reared back, breaking contact and plunging Gareth back into reality. Striking forward with lightning speed, the creature snapped open its jaw and blasted straight down with a fierce torrent of plasma that completely engulfed him in a column of orange and purple flame.

  I was afraid you'd say that, he thought as the plasma washed over him. The same bioelectric energy that allowed him to tap into neural impulses was what protected him now, acting as a repellant field, diverting the stream of energy around his body and away from him. A close fitting, dual-layer outfit allowed him some additional measure of insulation against the convective heat coming off the plasma roiling less than an inch from the surface of his skin. He looked up into the mouth of flame with a wry smile. But you've never met one of my people, he thought.

  The dragon was leaning down farther, his open mouth now hovering directly above him. Gareth lifted his staff and pointed the end toward the back of the creature's throat. He held steady, waiting for the dragon to notice he hadn't yet been vaporized.

  "Lure, we have a problem," Mira's voice cut in. "We need you to step back from target a few paces; plasma backwash is impeding our approach."

  "Copy that," he said, stepping back slowly. The dragon noticed the movement, and as Gareth positioned himself farther back, the creature hunched its shoulders, squared itself, and opened its gullet.

  There you are, he thought, raising his staff and priming his pulse charge. The flood of fire nearly doubled in intensity as the creature vomited up a powerful surge of heavy plasma directly from its digestive core. Gareth was hit face first with the hottest, most corrosive blast of pure energy he had yet experienced.

  Reacting with the oxygen in the air to create a wash of green flame that radiated out from the blast, it hit the ground and flowed out behind Gareth into the nearby trees, setting the underbrush on fire and incinerating the ground around him. It exited the creature's throat at such velocity that it pushed him bodily down to a kneeling position and he fought to stay upright against the torrent.

  He worked to keep his concentration up as the intense plasma pressed in around him, while the thin layer of air inside the bioelectric field he was struggling to maintain swiftly became a pressure cooker, the heat increasing to excruciating levels. He steadied the staff against the ground and leaned into it as he readjusted his aim, forced to shift his position with the crumbling earth as it began to break down under his feet. "Only have a few seconds," Gareth said with difficulty. "Hope you're in position."

  As soon as the creature had shifted its aim and was no longer firing straight down, Mira and Voss had bolted out from their edge of the clearing and dashed toward either side of its torso. They had precious seconds while the dragon was occupied with Gareth, and they quickly deployed the wrist hooks on their forearm guards, making for the blind spots behind the creature's folded wings. Crouched low, its underbelly was in easy reach, and both women signaled their positions.

  "Ready," Mira said, tensing herself to spring.

  "Ready!" Voss followed immediately after.

  "She's all yours," Gareth said through clenched teeth as he ducked his head, braced his staff and pulled the trigger.

  With an earsplitting crack, the staff fired a powerful pulse charge up into the back of the creature's throat. It ignited and cascaded outward, sending a wave of energy down the length of the gullet, causing convulsive spasms as it went that cla
mped the digestive passageway, completely cutting off the plasma flow.

  The flames extinguished immediately, and everyone sprang into action in the sudden silence.

  Mira and Voss leapt up against the dragon's hide, their wrist hooks catching and forming a clamp around the edges of the creature's scales. A quick release on the ankles deployed the boot hooks, allowing them to rappel upward like climbing a rock face. The dragon, momentarily stunned, snapped its jaw open and shut emitting a rasping heave as it tried without success to force plasma up its constricted gullet, while Gareth sprang up immediately and began to charge directly at it. It was a bluff, but the creature, realizing it had just lost the use of its primary defense, decided it was finished with this game. It reared back with a hissing shriek, spread its wings wide and launched itself into the sky, taking the two women right along with it.

  Gareth didn't stop but ducked and sprinted under the creature as it took off, crossing the open space and making for the opposite edge, leaving the clearing completely empty except for the shallow crater of ash and flame. He collapsed his staff and snapped it to his back as he dove into the forest, pushing his way forward through the thick underbrush.

  A short distance in and he was immediately upon the downed Vermithrax, its nose on a level with his head. It was resting at a skewed angle, having landed rather unceremoniously amongst a grouping of shorter trees. Its front end had sheared through several and was now wedged against two massive trunks, while the rear quarter was propped up in the air, having found a less forgiving cluster as it came to rest. Aris was visible through the front viewport, sitting at a similarly skewed angle with his arms crossed.

  As Gareth made his way around to the side, the hatch opened, and the steps extended down. He stopped abruptly, looking up. With the ship angled the way it was, the lowest step was still several feet above his head. "Great," he said, frowning. He took a preparatory breath, tensed, then vaulted straight up. He was able to grab onto the lip of the lowest step with his fingertips, though just barely. After a bit of effort, he managed to pull himself upward and clamber into the ship.