Gunner kicked the circle he had cut into and the metal fell inwards with a clang , revealing a bunker that had been designed to keep the President safe in the advent of thermonuclear war. Several aides, officials, and the Vice President, were all crowded inside, with the President himself nowhere to be seen. A secret serviceman stepped up, firing his 9mm pistol into Gunner’s chest. The bullets pinged and sparked and Julia yelped, lifting up her palms to create a magical force field that hummed to life, catching the ricochets before they could harm anyone.
The gun clicked repeatedly for a few seconds before the flack jacketed, sunglass equipped, brave as balls man realized he was empty. He blinked – and then Gunner yanked the pistol from his grip. He chuckled. “Nice grouping,” he said, in English, as Lisa ducked past him. She reached under the table and dragged a whimpering President out.
“Hey,” she said, cheerfully. “We’re here to talk about an alliance.”
***
The impact of VTOL to ocean sent Merton slamming back into the deck. His jaw hit metal and his teeth clacked together and his head started to ring as he sprawled there. For a few eternities, he didn’t think about anything. Instead, he simply sprawled there and wondered what else would go wrong today. When his head cleared and the pain subsided, he saw that Brash was once more restrained by a tube of metal, and that Merton’s hands had been zip tied behind his back. He was dragged to his feet and the soldier yanking him up growled in his ear.
“That was a dumbshit move you pulled, kid.”
“Fuck you,” Merton whispered.
The next few minutes were a confused stumbling up stairs, down a narrow corridor of chairs, then out into something dark and narrow and metal. The flickering lights overhead made Merton think ‘underwater base.’ But the room he was finally escorted to made him think ‘evil underwater base’, because it contained nothing but a pair of chairs, a few bright lights, restraints, his wife, and an unsmiling Asian woman in body armor. Merton was jammed into the chair and his restraints were upgraded from zip-ties to fuckoff huge zip-ties. Brash was set down on his lap. Brash, with only his head and tail free, craned his head around, snapping at the men who had roughed them into the room.
“Relix?” Merton hissed. “You okay?”
“I mean…” Relix groaned. “I’ve been electrocuted, de-powered, restrained, questioned, and bumped around. So, yes, I’m just peachy , husband.”
Merton glared at the Asian woman. “You fucking assholes! We came here to help!”
“You’re dragons,” the woman said. “Or at least, two thirds of you are. And we here at the Dragon Combat Unit are dedicated to one thing: Keeping dragons from conquering the Earth. The Dragon Empire has better tech and more planets. But we have the advantage of being off the beaten path and very...very... very good at learning what we need to learn.” She walked forward, her hands resting on her thighs as she leaned forward and looked at Merton. “But you are a mystery.”
Merton snorted. “Merton Miles. Interplanetary man of mystery, that’s me.”
“How did the dragons brainwash you?” She asked, frowning.
Merton, still feeling a bit loopy from the knock to the head, said the first thing that popped into his head: “Have you seen Relix’s titties?”
“Merton!” Relix hissed. “Don’t forget my rump.”
“Right, ass that won’t quit,” Merton said, grinning at the Asian woman. She looked less than amused. Her arms crossed over her armored chest piece.
“Uh-huh. So, a bit of T&A was all it took for you to forget your loyalty to your species?” She asked.
Merton closed his eyes. “Okay. Here’s what I would have said if you people had started off by talking , rather than fucking shooting . We came here to warn you. The Five...the Dragon Empire has just gone into a civil war. Do you know the difference between a chromatic and a metallic dragon?”
“Chromatic dragons are honest when they fuck you over?” The woman asked, arching an eyebrow.
Relix bristled behind Merton – he could feel her tension from the contact points between their bodies on the chair. Merton sighed and wished he could squeeze her hands. To comfort her. Instead, he just said: “A Chromatic House has genetically engineered superweapons on their hands and have already attacked Draconis Prime. Princess Relix here is the only surviving Castrovel left. That means that they will want her dead. She’s a threat to their power.” He shook his head. “And humans are a threat all by themselves.”
The woman frowned.
“We have two weeks,” Merton said. “To figure out some way of stopping this fleet. Now, please, let’s work together . That’s the only way we’re going to fucking survive.”
The woman held up her finger, then wordlessly turned and stalked out of the room. Once she was gone, all that was left was the faint hum of the lights. Merton leaned back in his seat. Brash bumped his head against Merton’s thigh. “You did good!” Brash said, cheerfully.
“I just hope that everyone else is doing all right,” Merton said, shaking his head. “But, hey. We left Lisa behind. Lisa is pretty calm and rational.” He nodded again.
Relix was silent for a few moments. Then, quietly. “Merton. What do we do if there is nothing that we can do? There is a single loyalist legion near Earth. But that’s one Legion against three Warspheres and who knows how many of the B-suits.” She craned her head back. “We need an alternative plan.”
Merton bit his lip. “Shit!” He leaned his head back. “I should have asked Dart before we left...”
“Asked her what?” Relix asked.
“Asked her to find an alternate Earth, somewhere, in the multiverse. Somewhere that we could evacuate people too.” Merton shook his head. “There are, uh, seven billion people on this planet. But if we use the portal emitters that Speccy has, we could set up...how many portals?”
“If we used every part of the Talon-9 ?” Relix asked. “I don’t know. Between...ten to thirty.”
Merton bit his lip. “Ten to thirty, operating round the clock for, uh, almost two weeks. That’s...” Not everyone. “That’s a lot of people.” He tried to sound cheery. “It’ll be something to ask Dart once we get back to the Talon , eh?”
Relix nodded. “Yeah.” She smiled. “Good thing Lisa will keep her safe.” Her eyes were filled with worry.
“Definitely,” Merton said, cheerfully. The idea of Lisa doing something impulsive and dangerous was pretty ridiclous, after all.
***
Speccy and Quetzalcoatl were trundling through downtown Atlantis. Well, Speccy was walking. Quetzalcoatl was thumping along on six legs, grown out from a dump-truck style growth of bone that thrust along his broad, flattened back. It was highly undignified for a dragon, but he gritted his teeth and bore it as Speccy continued to fill him up.
Dart waited until they were a good distance away before she tiptoed out from the small, shadowed alcove she had ducked into as the Talon-9 roared away. She slung the pack full of stolen supplies over her back and grinned to herself as she started to walk towards the still semi-active dimensional portal.
It was a bit of a hike.
And she had a long way to go before she was outta here.
***
Lisa sat, flanked by Julia, Gunner, Merton’s Mom and Merton’s Dad. Carlos and Trevor were back on the Talon-9 , ready to turn the teleporter on and yank them out of the room if the need came. Sitting across from them was the Secretary of Defense, the President, the Vice President, a bunch of aides, and the most important person in the room, the President’s cell phone. His thumbs tapped away as he looked at Lisa over the edge of the old blackberry.
“So,” Lisa said. “That’s the situation. A battlefleet-”
“We can take them,” the President declared.
“You...” Lisa blinked, then rubbed her temple. “They’re an alien battlefleet with three planetkillers. We have a Soyuz with a machine gun duct taped to the front. And that’s not even ours, it’s Russian!”
“Listen,”
the President said, wheezing slightly. “We have, uh, the best. The best navy. The best air force. The best, uh, armed forces. We’re the best, we have the best. And that’s all there is too it. You won’t hear about that in the media.” He shook his head, his hair coming slightly off center. Lisa continued to rub her temple. Julia glanced at her, raising a single eyebrow. The Vice President remained placid faced – though his eyes betrayed the utter loathing he felt at Julia’s very presence. It was either the wizard’s hat or the lack of other clothing. The President, by the way, was still going. “We have the biggest ships, the best ships, they’re really good, these ships-”
The door opened and a stern faced man in a suit, flanked by two men in FBI field uniforms, walked in. The President craned his head back. “What the flying fuck is this?” he asked – then yelped as one of the FBI men dragged his arms behind his back. Handcuffs clicked and the former President was dragged to his feet.
“This is bulls-” his voice was cut off by the door.
“Well,” the new President said, adjusting his tie. “I think that, hey, what are you doing!?” He yelped as the second FBI man dragged his arm behind his back and forced him to his feet. “I didn’t know anything about any treason, what!?”
The second President in as many minutes went out the door shouting for his lawyer.
The stern faced man adjusted his tie and nodded to Lisa.
“...so, uh, the Speaker of the House?” Lisa asked.
“He was arrested in at the Capitol building,” the man said. “President Mattis.” He nodded to the Secretary of Defense, who coughed and adjusted his tie. He stood, shifted to the chair the President had sat in, then looked back at Lisa.
“Normally, there’d be more of a ceremony,” President Mattis said. “But I believe time is short.”
Lisa breathed in, then out. “All right. First things first, we need to get Princess Relix out of internment. She was captured by some forces...uh, Gunner?” Gunner slid a holo of the scan of the VTOL craft that they had detected capturing Relix and Merton. President Mattis rubbed his face, then nodded.
“Of course. We’ll need to send a signal to this loyalist legion you mentioned,” he said, slowly. “But will it be enough?”
Lisa shrugged. “It better.”
***
Merton was bouncing his thighs to keep Brash entertained – and doing quite a good job at it, considering how excited the tiny dragon was at bouncing up and down – when the lights came to full and several D-Com soldiers walked in, including the Asian woman who had been questioning them before. Before Merton could ask more than a garbled ‘what the-’ a knife had cut off his zip-ties, and the keycode to open Brash’s restraints was being typed in. Relix stood with an aggrieved harrumph as she rubbed at her wrists.
“The name is Lieutenant Kisogawa,” she said. “Sorry for the roughness – but...uh...” She sighed. “We just got the order from the Security Council. D-Com’s going public and we’ve all got a fuck of a lot of work to do.”
“Finally,” Relix said, sticking her nose into the air. “I accept your apology.”
“Thanks,” Kisogawa said, her voice flat. She folded the knife back into its hilt and pocketed it. “We need to get you two on a flight to Geneva. That’s where the organization is going to be held. We’re calling in the armed service of NATO, former Warsaw Pact...everyone.” She smiled, slightly. “Thanks, Princess . Y ou may have just gotten us world peace.” She shrugged. “For a day, at least.”
Relix, Brash and Merton followed her to the VTOL. Now that Merton wasn’t half dazed with an impact to the chin, he could actually get a fairly good look at the surroundings of the D-Com base. It looked a bit like an old oil platform that someone had sunk under the waves, with lots of narrow corridors and heavy machines that whirred and groaned quietly. Noticing his looks – and his expression at seeing the faint drips of water falling from several points in the ceiling, Kisogawa explained: “It’s an experimental Soviet submersible aircraft carrier. The idea was to emerge off the coast and launch more than just short ranged multistage warheads. Tactical nukes on jets, city busters on planes, that kind of thing. It never took off, doubly so once ICBMs were invented. The half-built prototype sat around for decades...but it fits D-Com’s needs.”
Merton blinked, then said. “Let me see. Uh, it’s mobile, carries aircraft for rapid deployment...” He paused. “And you can put an ocean between you and orbital laser bombardment?”
“Bingo,” Kisogawa said, grinning. “You picked a good boyfriend.”
“Husband,” Relix snarled. “And I know.” She smiled at Merton in a way that still made Merton’s heart hammer.
“Husband?” Kisogawa shook her head as they walked up to the VTOL. “Okay.”
“Hey!” Merton said.
“Listen, I’ve spent my whole life training on how to kill dragons. The idea of someone marrying one is just...” Kisogawa shrugged. “Gross. Now, get one. We’ve got a straight flight to Geneva.”
The VTOL rose from the ocean with a spray of cascading water and steam, then shot off towards the horizon. Merton leaned back in his seat, feeling a heavy bone deep ache of tiredness. He closed his hand around Relix’s hand, smiling at her. She smiled back. And while she smiled, he felt like they might actually have a chance.
***
“We don’t have a chance.”
Merton felt like Speccy had literally pulled a fish out from between her amazing tits and smacked him in the face with it.
“But...but...Atlantis!” He stammered, gesturing to the dead city.
“Useless,” Speccy said, crossing her arms under her breasts. This had the effect of drawing Merton’s eye, despite the dire situation and day and a half without a single wink of sleep. Geneva had been, just as he had expected, a clusterfuck. They had arrived to find that the United States was undergoing the largest mass trial for treason in its history, the NATO alliance on such shaky grounds that there had been some debates as to whether or not Canada would even show up . The Russians had initially refused to even believe anything until Relix had transformed to her draconic form and froze their diplomat solid on the floor of the United Nations. And even once everyone had started to (grudgingly) work together, Merton had left the administrative complex without knowing who was going to lead the united human defenses or what those defenses were going to be.
He had come to Antarctica expecting relief.
Instead…
“What do you mean useless ?” Merton asked.
“The magitech here is ten thousand years old. There’s been ten thousand years of innovation. Even at the glacial rate of change in the Five Talon Empire, that’s enough time for us to come up with a few new ideas.”
Merton sagged. “So...we’re doomed.”
Speccy shrugged. “We have enough salvaged magitechnological material here to, with the magician-engineers of the 42 nd Legion, to construct three new warships.”
“Oh,” Merton said, looking over at Quetzalcoatl, who was heaped with glittering material – gemstones and bits of wire and chunks of metal that he had assumed was just generic treasure. “That’s not enough, though! Also, where the fuck is Dart?!”
“She ran,” Quetzalcoatl said. “She fled through the dimensional portal before we could stop her. Before we even knew she wasn’t on the Talon-9 , for that matter.” His deep, rumbling voice was filled with disgust.
Merton put his hands over his face. He started to pace back and forth, thinking. “What can we make other than ships?” He asked.
Speccy shrugged. “We can build a lot of power armor. And I do mean a lot of power armor. We can build a pretty serious orbital defense gun, but it won’t be mobile. There’s also a portal network in these supplies. We could make a few hundred portals, given half a week and breakneck labor.” She shook her head. “By my calculations, though, without a safe planet to run too, you’ll be dooming not one but two civilizations by dumping three billion refugees on their heads-”
Merton winc
ed. Even with the best they could do, Speccy knew they couldn’t save everyone. She continued, her voice brutally honest. “Better to spread humanity to many different worlds. Though, if you were going to do that, I’d suggest building cheap ships.”
“Cheap ships...” Merton said, slowly.
Speccy nodded. “Just a thin layer of aluminum with a subspace drive, enough to get them away and to the fringes of the former Empire.”
Scales Like Stars (Dragons...in...SPACE! Book 1) Page 25