Ruin of Dragons Read online

  The tail disappeared, the door slid shut and she watched as the vessel rose effortlessly into the air. Errol whickered, then seemed to remember where he was, starting forward once again toward the homestead. Petra guided the horse to the stable at the back, jumped off and started around the house. "Rowan?" she called as she rounded the corner to the west side, stopping to survey the damage to what an hour prior had been a freshly plowed field. A great gash in the earth trailed all the way to the edge of the clearing, and she could see the hole in the trees where the creature had powered through.

  "Petra?" a weak voice came from behind her.

  She spun around to find Rowan slumped to the ground, leaning against the side of the house and squinting in the afternoon sun. "Rowan! Are you okay?" She ran over and knelt next to him, lifting his head to look for injuries. He was groggy but she saw no signs of damage.

  "I'm fine," he said, wincing and swatting her hands away.

  "What happened?"

  He pointed to the ruined field. "Your dragon paid me a visit." He looked up at her with a smirk. "Might want to get your 'I told you so' out of the way."

  "Shut up," she said, frowning.

  "I was behind the house when it happened, heard all this crashing and rumbling, like the world was coming to an end. Came around the house, and here was this giant dragon staring me in the face."

  Petra clapped a hand over her mouth, but Rowan waved it off. "It wasn't moving," he continued. "It looked unconscious, like it had fallen out of the sky and crashed." His brow creased as he appeared to concentrate. "That's where my memory gets stupid. I seem to recall a woman in leather climbing down off the dragon's back and yelling at it like a misbehaving pet, which doesn't make any kind of sense, then a tall guy with a staff appeared out of nowhere and … well, yeah, that's the last thing I remember." He scratched his head and looked back up at Petra. "I think I hallucinated and blacked out."

  "I'm sure that's what it was," Petra said, grinning.

  "Did you see it?" Rowan asked. "Where did it go?"

  Petra looked up. Vermithrax was nothing more than a tiny black speck in the middle of the sky, swiftly shrinking into nothingness. "Far away from here," she said, her voice distant.

  checkpoint

  "Ow," Voss said, flinching. Her bare forearm was laid out on the cool surface of the surgery table as she sat across from Gareth in the medical quarters. He had applied a topical before starting, but it was still terribly uncomfortable, and she struggled to keep still while he stitched the gash closed.

  "Almost finished," he said softly, looping a knot in the final suture and clipping the ends. The scale hook had pierced completely through her forearm just behind the wrist, and Gareth had needed to clean out and close up exposed tissue on both sides, all while Voss squirmed. "There," he said with a smirk.

  She flexed her fingers experimentally, wincing slightly as the wet numbness stopped just short of completely blocking the pain. "Thanks doc," Voss said as Gareth wrapped the wound with a gauze bandage. She picked the bracer up off the table as she stood up, noting the hole that had been punched through the thick material with a sour expression.

  She buckled it back onto her forearm over the bandage as she walked to the back door of the medical quarters. Leaving Gareth to clean up, she stepped across the corridor and through the blast doors into the containment complex. Walking around the shield wall into the hold, she found Mira in the process of moving a clamp to the end of the dragon's tail. The creature was lying more or less where the lifts had deposited it in the center of the space, and Mira was nearly finished repositioning the appendages. The wings and legs had been tucked in close, and the head and neck doubled back along the length of the body. All that remained was the tail, still snaking out to the back corner of the hold.

  "How's the arm?" Mira asked, not looking up.

  Voss walked over and knelt down beside, helping to position the clamp. "Well, I didn't get the bionic enhancements I was hoping for," she said with a lopsided smile, "but maybe next time."

  Mira looked up, finally meeting Voss's gaze. "I'm sorry," she said softly.

  Voss put a hand on Mira's. "Don't worry about it, sweetheart," she said. "I'm the idiot who grabbed for your wrist. You're lucky we don't both have matching puncture wounds." The clamp activated, the two stood up and Mira reached for the controls to the manipulator arm. "Besides," Voss continued, "doc said no major tendons or nerves got severed, just squishy tissue."

  Mira smiled as the clamp line drew taut and the lift arm swung forward, bringing the end of the tail up next to the head. "His words?"

  Voss started for the center of the room as the tail came to rest. "I believe that's the clinical term," she said as she reached the clamp and detached it from the tail, watching it retract back to the lift arm above. Voss stepped back, surveying the creature in repose. Even doubled up with its limbs flush against itself taking up as little room as possible, the dragon still dominated the space. She turned back to the four cryo containment bays recessed into the port side of the hold, casting a doubtful eye on the lowest chamber currently standing ready. "Are you sure she's gonna fit?"

  Mira crossed the room and placed an arm across Voss's shoulders, leading her away from the center of the space. "Let's find out, shall we?" she said as they reached the lift controls at the front shield wall.

  Mira activated the lower ramps, a twin set of four wedge-shaped arms on either side of the prone creature that lifted out of the floor and angled up toward the center of the room. Electromagnetic emitters activated along the length of the ramps, creating a repulsor field that pushed against the mineral makeup of the dragon's physiology, lifting it bodily into the air as the wedges came together to form a cradle beneath the creature.

  With the dragon floating silently in the center of the room, Mira maneuvered the three manipulator arms down from the lift gantry above, opening the magnetic clamps wide to gently secure the creature and keep it from drifting within the repulsor field.

  The cradle then slid sideways, the manipulator arms moving in tandem, bringing the dragon over to the cryo stasis chambers. The cradle pivoted sideways and the manipulator arms guided the creature over, depositing it into the open unit at the bottom. Voss was waiting by the controls and activated the bay. The manipulator arms lifted back to the gantry, the lower ramps flattened out and disappeared back into their slots in the floor as the top half of the cryo tube lowered into place and sealed shut with a hiss of compressed gas. "Nighty-night," Voss said, patting the edge of the great cylinder as it retracted back into its housing chamber.

  "See? No problem," Mira said, replacing the manipulator controls back into their socket.

  Voss grinned as she stepped past to the control panel and activated the intercom. "All right Cap, the old girl's tucked in," she said. "We got a full house."

  "Copy that," Aris's voice came back. "Boone's gravity well is clear, we're in slipstream and should be home in twelve hours. Get some rest."

  "Gladly," Voss said, shutting off the intercom and heading for the exit. They stepped through the blast doors and took the corner as the corridor split, making their way around the medical quarters at the center of the ship. The side door opened at their approach, with Gareth stepping up to the opening and shutting out the lights in the bay.

  "Me first," Voss said, putting up a hand to stop Gareth in the doorway as she continued past without slowing.

  "Of course," he said with a grin as Mira's face scrunched up in a tiny scowl. "Manners," the elf said in a soft voice.

  "Sleep," Voss returned. The two peeled off into their quarters as the corridor straightened back out, and Gareth continued on, shaking his head as he went. The cockpit door opened and he walked up to the copilot chair next to Aris and dropped down into it, leaning back and propping his legs up on the console. His boots reached almost to the front, where the center HUD projector sat nestled agai
nst the base of the viewport. He turned, finally noticing Aris sitting in resolute silence, staring an unfocused gaze out into the black.

  "All right, what is it?" Gareth asked.

  Aris turned to him, seeming to wake up slightly. "What?"

  Gareth sat up straight. "Four in the hold, heading home," he said, quoting what Aris would normally say at the end of a run. "Why so grim?"

  Aris nodded to one of the side monitors, and Gareth turned to a news feed on the display he hadn't paid attention to upon entering. "Ah, hell," he said, scanning the brief. "Another city attacked. That's what, the fourth colony this month?"

  "Except this one wasn't a new settlement," Aris pointed.

  "Same mode of intent, though: ecoterrorism targeting colonization of uninhabited worlds." Gareth read further. "But you're right, this wasn't the same. Barrast is a longer held colony, third generation." He looked up at Aris as he made the connection. "Wait, isn't your family—?"

  "They're okay, thankfully," Aris said quickly, his voice tight. "Only the capital was hit. But they don't live far."

  Gareth turned back to the report. There were more details of the attack, but like the previous incidents, no entity had yet come forward to claim ownership or make demands. "They're getting bolder," he said. "Barrast actually has a planetary defense."

  "What little good it did them," Aris said. "Slipped in under sensors in the middle of the night and burned the city center to the ground. We were just there, too." He shook his head. "Nothing we can do about it now."

  Gareth looked at him, surprised at the note of bitterness in his voice. Aris had never gone into detail about why he had left the Ranger Corps, but this almost sounded like regret.

  "Um, what could we have done about it, even if we'd had warning? We'd be toast, too. Vermithrax isn't an assault craft."

  "Of course she is," Aris said, standing up and starting for the back. "Where do you think I got her?"

  Gareth rolled his eyes. He knew very well Vermithrax had been a troop carrier before Aris had it refit for dragon transport, but that wasn't his point. "It's not our job," he countered. "We're not equipped or trained as a military force. Besides, you left that position, remember?"

  Aris stopped at the door. Gareth couldn't see his face, but he could sense immediately that he probably shouldn't have said that.

  "I left the company," Aris said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I never left the position." He turned back, and Gareth caught the briefest flash of the edge under his expression before it disappeared, softening into something more closely resembling fatigue.

  No doubt realizing that he wasn't the only one exhausted, Aris tried smiling again. It was only partly convincing. "Get some rest," he said. "I don't know what we'll be in for next." He turned and walked out, the cockpit door closing behind him. It was only a few steps to the door of his quarters, but the corridor felt endless as he walked, watching his feet on the darkened floor grating. He stepped up to the door and walked inside, suddenly feeling the weight of the last two weeks pressing in on him. Rest would be good, he decided, since there finally seemed to be time to do so. He dropped into bed without even removing his boots and was asleep almost instantly.

  Ship's morning arrived, and Aris was dressed, refreshed and back at the helm, watching the indistinct blackness through the front viewport. Mira was sitting next to him, running copilot. She brought ship systems up from standby as Aris watched the countdown near its mark. The proximity alert sounded, and he reached over to pull the lever cutting the slipstream drive and bringing the ship back into normal space. Aris then touched the intercom. "We land in fifteen," he said, looking out at the planet directly in front of them. "Anyone putting in for leave has to get in line behind me."

  "Doesn't work like that, Cap," Voss's voice squawked from the speaker. "If you go, we all go."

  "What's wrong," Aris asked, grinning. "Afraid they'll assign you to a team that won't get your sense of humor?"

  "You're presuming other teams would take us on," Mira said softly.

  Aris turned to her, surprised. "Why wouldn't they? You've got one of the best landing averages in the network."

  Mira's eyebrow arched slightly, her smile tight. "You can be forgiven for being blind," she said. "We've been your only company for the last four years." Her smile slipped a little. "But where you see me as Mira Valric, dragonrider, everyone else only sees me as the elf. Did you know I'm still the only one in the Kingsguard?"

  Aris's smile dropped. He knew she had been the first elf field agent, but he hadn't known she was still the only one.

  "Voss has it a little better," she continued. "At least I've seen other dwarves around when we show up at base."

  Aris didn't quite know how to respond. She was right: he did have a certain amount of cultural blindness when it came to the members of his team. As far as he was concerned, Mira was simply a valuable operative, not to mention a good friend. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "That thought honestly hadn't occurred to me. You're the first elf I've really known, so I tend to think of others as being like you, rather than probably the other way around…"

  "You would be one of the few who do. And it's sweet that you don't seem to remember when I first joined the team. I was the elf for a while here, too." Her tone wasn't chiding, and there was a hint of a smile that suggested the memory was warm, which let Aris relax a little. "But you've made me feel at home as long as I've been a part of this," she continued, her smile broadening. "And I appreciate that more than I can say."

  "Ditto that," Voss said as she walked on, sitting down at the engineering station behind the copilot seat.

  "Just the same," Mira continued, "if you're taking time off, I will too. It's difficult enough going into an operation with a team you haven't worked with, but having to get past a cultural association on top of it? Not something I'd want another team member to have to deal with."

  "What are we subjecting other team members to?" Gareth asked as he walked on, sitting down at the tactical station behind the pilot seat. "We're not picking up another shadow, are we?"

  "No," Aris said quickly. "No more babysitting new recruits. I think we traumatized the last one they stuck us with."

  "That was mostly Voss," Gareth pointed.

  The dwarf shrugged. "Not my fault the kid was breakable. But his constant wizard worship was hilarious."

  Gareth's face tightened. "Yeah, I could've done with less of that."

  Mira turned around. "Did you just use the phrase wizard worship?"

  "That's what made it so funny," Voss continued, turning to Gareth. "You tried to dispel every myth the gullible idiot had bought into, tried to deflect his attention onto practically anything else – all while remaining maddeningly polite, I might add – and still failed spectacularly. If it hadn't been so entertaining, that operation would have otherwise been a complete waste of time."

  "Triumph through adversity," Aris said, nodding his head. "Another lesson the kid failed to pick up, even while demonstrating."

  Another alert sounded, this one from the comm board indicating they were within transmission range. Aris touched a switch, opening a channel. "Avernus control, this is Vermithrax, Three-two-seven-actual, requesting approach vector."

  "Copy, Three-two-seven. Stand by," responded a tinny voice over the speaker, followed by a short pause. "ID confirmed, proceed to landing bay two, platform four."

  An indicator lit up on the navigation console. "Coordinates received," Mira said, inputting the data. "Course laid in."

  "Acknowledged, control," Aris said to the voice on the other end. "We're inbound, ETA ten minutes."

  "Safe landing, Three-two-seven. Avernus out." There was a click as the comm line closed. Aris turned forward, watching the planet in front of them grow larger as they approached, the conversation momentarily forgotten.

  Harr was a bleak world, an almost featurele
ss red-brown rock devoid of anything remotely resembling conventional life and covered with a thin carbon monoxide atmosphere. Still in its early stages of planetary development, the surface was barren and cratered, and red magma could still occasionally be seen through fissures on the dark side of the planet's surface. This bright red veinwork seemed to pulse in time with the changing seasons and gave an impression of the planet as a living entity unto itself.

  "Home sweet home," Aris said, angling Vermithrax in closer, and as they crested the pole and crossed the terminator line into daylight, their destination rose into view. Avernus sat silent in space, a great sentry looking down on Harr's northern hemisphere, an immense disc-shaped orbital platform that served as the Sanctuary network's central base of operations.

  Part transport hub, part remote outpost, part scientific research facility, Avernus was a small floating city, home to several hundred people, all working toward the same goal: the study, relocation and protection of the dragon population. Harr was a sanctuary world, an environment uniquely suited to a species that needed neither organic sustenance nor a breathable atmosphere. The planet's high internal temperature and rich mineral content provided an ideal location to house the species, giving them space to thrive for eons to come, with Avernus serving as the gateway.

  Vermithrax moved in closer and angled toward the left edge of the outer rim, where the line of docking bay entrances was becoming visible. There was no traffic around the station itself, giving the massive orbital the illusion of loneliness, heightened by the unending desolation of the planet below. It was an illusion broken upon arriving at the opening of the landing bay, where a bustle of activity was immediately visible inside. Vermithrax passed through the outer magnetic shield and turned as Aris maneuvered the ship toward the open landing pad at the back of the large space.