Metal Dragon (Warriors of Galatea Book 2)

by Lauren Esker

  She loved this purse. She'd always liked large, colorful handbags, and Cora had given her this one for Christmas a few years ago. It looked like an enormous clownfish—the orange and white fish from Finding Nemo—and it was full of pockets. It didn't match anything else she owned. Though half the reason why she liked it so much was because of people's faces when she went out with the clownfish hanging from a strap over her shoulder.

  "I can't believe you actually take that thing out in public," Cora said, right on cue. She eyed the purse as Meri briskly extracted a tiny flashlight from one of the pockets and began to rummage around with the bag held between her knees. "I just wanted to imagine your face when you opened the package. I kept the receipt so you could pick out a purse you actually liked."

  "I like this one. It fits everything I want to carry with me and it's solid enough to take down a mugger if I need to." Meri knew exactly which pocket the allergy medicine was in. She knew which pocket everything was in. It was just a matter of shifting enough items to be able to reach it.

  "That's because you have everything but the kitchen sink in there."

  "If I find a travel-sized kitchen sink, I just might put it in there too. Oh!" She'd had the pill bottle for a minute, but the car jolted and it slipped down into the depths.

  "There's an exit up ahead. Let me pull off, and I can take my pill and call Dave to let him know where we are."

  "Sounds good." Having found the bottle of antihistamine tablets, Meri held it up and checked it with the flashlight to make sure they were non-drowsy. She shook out a pill into her palm, and got out the little bottle of water tucked into the end pocket. "And I didn't wake up the baby."

  There was a quick flash of a bright smile, so reminiscent of those college days that it made Meri's heart ache. "She's handling it so well. She's really good in cars. Just goes right out." Cora smothered a yawn. "Okay, let's stop talking about falling asleep."

  "I can spell you on the driving when we leave the rest stop."

  "It's just a yawn. I can still drive fine." She smothered another yawn. "Okay, maybe I am tired. It's probably a good idea to trade off soon."

  They took the exit for a town that Meri immediately forgot the name of. They were mostly interchangeable anyway, these little roadside towns in the cornfields, the ones that consisted mainly of a gas station and a couple of restaurants at the freeway exit, and scattered farmhouses and maybe a county road or two. She had grown up in a town like this farther south. As a girl, she couldn't wait to get out of it, though now she found herself missing it vaguely, in that wistful way you miss a place you know you can never go back to.

  Cora parked near the bright lights of a gas plaza, and they both got out to stretch their legs. Meri handed over the allergy pill and bottle of water.

  "I love how you're still prepared for everything," Cora said after knocking back the pill. "I remember back in college if anybody needed an aspirin or a screwdriver, you were the one to talk to."

  Meri patted her purse. "I still have both."

  "The original mom friend, right?" Cora said, grinning at her. "You always took care of us."

  Yes, but who took care of me after Aaron died? Bitterness welled up in her. She pushed it down as she always did and turned away, leaving Cora looking up the route ahead on her phone, and went in to use the restroom.

  Under the harsh restroom lights, she looked faded to herself in the mirror, her shoulders hunched and her skin wan with undertones of gray. Her hair, in springy short twists, was bleached at the tips and dyed coppery red, a new thing she'd decided to try just recently after noticing the first threads of silver beginning to curl and twist among the black. Cora had laughed and said it looked like her hair was rusting. (That was a lot of shade from a woman who used to get her hair straightened and dyed purple in college.)

  She found that she was restlessly turning the wedding ring around and around on her finger. Ten years she'd been a widow, and still she wore that ring. It had always seemed wrong, somehow, to take it off. It meant letting go of Aaron, moving on, making decisions about a future without Aaron in it.

  I'm 35 years old. The future is coming for me whether I want it or not.

  Well, that was the problem. She had things she wanted; her entire heart, it seemed, was a bruise that ached with vaguely defined wanting. She wanted Aaron back. She wanted to have the money and leisure time to travel and see things; she wanted, maybe, to take up a hobby like pottery or writing poetry, something fun and creative. But there was nothing she wanted enough to get fired up for it. Not like she'd wanted things when she was a young woman, with the heat and passion that had driven her to work her way through nursing school, to marry Aaron after a whirlwind courtship, to throw herself wholeheartedly into work and friendship and love. She remembered that young woman like a stranger, that woman who was full of energy and life.

  Somehow she didn't think Kansas City was going to feel like starting over any more than Columbus had.

  What's that old saying? Wherever you go, there you are ...

  But at least it would be something. She'd have Cora and Dave and their kids to help her stop getting lost in her own head. She could explore the city, go for walks like she used to. Maybe she could take a college class, or take up jogging.

  With a firm, decisive twist of her fingers, she pulled off her wedding ring. There was a paler band of skin where she'd worn the ring for most of her adult life. Meri stared at it for a moment, her hand already feeling naked, and then thrust the ring into a pocket of her purse.

  New city. New start.

  Her eyes stung with tears again. She blinked them firmly away.

  I'm 35, not 92. I'm not dead. Aaron wouldn't have wanted me to spend my whole life grieving.

  She bought herself a cup of coffee in the convenience store and tried not to feel too self-conscious about her empty ring finger.

  A little boy clinging to his mother's hand giggled and pointed at her purse with a happy cry of "Nemo!" The boy's mom tried to shush him, but Meri smiled at both of them.

  It was why she liked wearing this purse even though it was ridiculous, she reflected as she pushed through the door into the warm humidity of a Midwest summer night. It made people smile. It made her smile, and not many things could do that anymore. As a young woman, she used to love bright things, flowers and jewelry and colorful skirts. There hadn't been a lot of brightness in her life lately.

  Maybe she would treat herself to a pretty skirt when she got to Kansas City.

  Cora was leaning against the car and just finishing up a conversation when Meri reached her. "Love you too. Bye." She looked up at Meri. "Dave says hi. He's pretty much talked me into getting a hotel for the night before we get too tired. What do you think?"

  "I think that'd be a good idea," Meri admitted.

  "He said he'll make us a pot roast tomorrow. I told him he didn't have to, but he said if we're driving all day, it's the least he can do to welcome you to Missouri. He said to text him if you had any special requests for dessert."

  "Tell him ..." Meri hesitated. "Tell him thank you for me," she said absently. Something had caught her attention; she just wasn't sure what.

  Cora looked up from texting. "Mer? What's the matter?"

  "I don't know." Meri looked around the parking lot. It was just an ordinary freeway stop at night. There were a dozen or so other cars, a couple of 18-wheelers and an RV pulled into the truck parking area. Traffic hummed along on the interstate. Her gaze skimmed past a couple giving their dog a travel break on the gravel beside the convenience store, an old guy with teenage grandkids by the doors, and the lady with the little boy ...

  But the cicadas weren't chirring anymore. That was what she'd noticed, the sudden cessation of that constant soundtrack of Midwest summers.

  And there was ... something else. A strange heaviness in the air. It made her think instantly of tornadoes, and she looked quickly upward, but there was nothing to see except stars winking through patchy clouds in the sky. Thi
s wasn't tornado weather, and there was no wind except a light breeze, neither the hard gusts of wind that heralded a storm, nor a sudden deadly stillness.

  "Meri, you're worrying me."

  "Check your phone," Meri said, still staring at the sky. "See if there are any weather alerts." Would they get warning sirens out in the country like this? She'd never actually seen a tornado, and it wasn't an experience she cared to have. I wouldn't mind excitement in my life, but not that kind!

  "It's all clear on the radar. What's the matter, did you hear something about bad weather up ahead?"

  "No, I've just got a bad feeling. I think we should get back in the—"

  She stopped.

  "Meri?" Cora said nervously.

  "Get in the car," Meri said. Her own voice sounded hoarse and strange.

  There was something ... big landing on the edge of the parking lot, blocking the freeway exit ramp.

  She hadn't seen it because it was completely dark, making it almost invisible in the darkness of the rural night; something about it seemed to swallow light instead of reflecting. And it made no noise. It was like a huge ... balloon? Yes, maybe that was it, a long balloon like a dirigible, setting down at the parking lot's edge.

  —no, that was stupid, it wasn't a balloon, balloons didn't look like that; she had no idea what it was.

  A sudden, powerful gust of wind flattened the grass, blew leaves off the trees along the edge of the parking area, and made Meri stagger back as the—balloon? helicopter? whatever-the-hell-it-was settled to the ground. With a sudden screech of tires, the nearest tractor-trailer skidded sideways, having caught the gust broadside, and teetered for a moment on the verge of falling over.

  Meri was only distantly aware of panic breaking out around her. She couldn't take her eyes off that big dark thing. Now that it had settled to the ground, completely blocking the exit ramp and crushing brush on both sides of the parking area, she could see it a little better in the lights of thee gas plaza. It appeared to be dark, dull silver, like some kind of unreflective metal, pewter or lead or something. The gas station floodlights lit it up enough that she could make out its general shape: tapered at one end, flaring slightly at the other, maybe thirty or forty yards long and about twenty feet high.

  It was as big as a house, and it hadn't made a sound except for the crackling of the brush as it set down. Now it was utterly motionless, just sitting there across the end of the parking lot.

  Cora had her phone in her hand, but all she could do was stare, her eyes huge. "Should I ... should I call 911, do you think?"

  It looked like several other people were already doing that. Meri glanced through the car window at Toni sleeping in her carseat. "I think you should get in the car with your little girl."

  A streak of light appeared low on the silver thing's curving side, opening rapidly to reveal a block of bright silver light with incredibly, inhumanly weird-shaped figures standing in it.

  And finally Meri's rational mind managed to come up with an explanation, as little sense as it made.

  This is a UFO.

  These are aliens.

  We are being attacked.

  "Get in the car!" she snapped, and Cora fumbled with the door, staring in wild-eyed panic. Meri reached into her purse and got out her key chain with the pepper spray on it.

  The door of the UFO was flush with ground level, and as the aliens marched into the parking lot, the two leading ones each pointed at one of the onlookers, most of whom now had their phones out. There were two quick flashes of green light, and the two targets, a trucker and a tourist-looking woman, went completely limp and crumpled to the ground with a pair of painful-sounding thumps.

  The aliens didn't seem to be carrying weapons. None of them had anything in their hands. They just pointed and people fell.

  They were a motley assortment; the only thing they all had in common was that they were clearly not human. The majority of them were covered in fur, at least seven feet tall, with pricked-up cat-ears. All wore pants and boots; most were shirtless. One of them was shorter, with purple skin and—Heaven help us, Meri thought. The purple-skinned man's hands ended in claws, long and curved, making him look like a mole or something.

  And he wasn't even the weirdest of the bunch. That had to be the actual, honest-to-God, am-I-freaking-seeing-this centaur, a broad-shouldered man with flowing chestnut hair that matched the hide of his horse-half, clattering along on dinner-plate-sized hooves like a Clydesdale's.

  Meri stood frozen, clutching her little tube of pepper spray like it could do anything at all against that.

  Panic spread; people began to run. The aliens were in no hurry. They pointed and zapped, pointed and zapped, and each target crumpled to the ground. One woman managed to get into her car, but as she veered around in a squeal of tires, aiming for the wrong-way ramp leading back to the freeway, the centaur pointed at her tires. The car swerved wildly and jolted to an abrupt stop, the rubber stripped off all four tires and paint blistered as if someone had raked a flamethrower across the side.

  Meri didn't know if the people who had been zapped with that terrible green light were alive or dead. Alive, she thought maybe, because the aliens were starting to drag them back to their ship. But maybe they just wanted to eat them. What the hell, what the hell, what the hell!!

  They weren't waiting until all of them were stunned, either. They seemed to enjoy grabbing screaming, running people and hauling them, struggling, toward their ship.

  "Meri, get in!" Cora cried through the half-open car window. The baby was awake now, starting to cry.

  I don't know if it'll help, Meri thought. Any of the cars that tried to drive away were disabled with stabbing bursts of light so that the aliens could drag the people out of them. They seemed to be having fun; it was like sport for them.

  "Meri!"

  "Stay in the car. Get down and see if you can keep Toni quiet. Maybe they won't see you." It seemed hopeless. Meri clutched the pepper spray tighter.

  Cora leaned between the seats to try to calm the wailing baby. "Hush, baby, hush. Meri, get in!"

  "Shhh! Get down! Hide!" Meri stepped forward, standing between the car and the oncoming aliens. Maybe if they were busy with her, they wouldn't notice anyone in the car.

  She wasn't sure what made her do it. Meri had never thought of herself as a brave person, or a heroic or self-sacrificing person. But Cora had her kids and husband. Meri was alone. It made sense for her to stand here and try to stop them from taking Cora, who had so much to live for, when Meri had so little.

  The centaur galloped ahead of the others, clattering up to her. Despite her terror, she couldn't help being fascinated. The man's muscular torso blended seamlessly into his horse half. He wore a loose leather vest, silver bracelets on each wrist, and strands of beads woven into his hair. There were tattoos on the light skin of his human arms, and on his horse half a complex brand of a similar design, a bold swirling pattern, weaving its way up his back leg and across his flank.

  Meri still hadn't managed to see what the aliens were shooting people with, but as far as she could tell, he didn't seem to be carrying any weapons except for a knife in a sheath at his human waist. He grinned at her, a flash of broken teeth in his chestnut beard, and reached for her.

  Meri squeezed the pepper spray and unloaded the little canister into his face.

  Alien or not, he wasn't immune. He let out a bellow of pain and clawed at his face with his hands, coughing and choking.

  If Meri was going to run, this would be the time to do it. But ... how could she leave Cora? She looked over her shoulder and saw that Cora had taken her advice and crawled into the backseat to get Toni out of the carseat. She was trying to get them both down on the floor in the backseat, hiding beneath one of Toni's blankets.

  The alien was starting to recover from the pepper spray, squinting at her furiously through streaming eyes. He made a grab at her and missed.

  Meri wanted desperately to run away. Instead she ran forwar
d and punched him in the stomach as hard as she could. It had been a very long time since she'd been in a fight—not since grade school. She was distantly surprised to discover that she still remembered those long-ago playground brawling tactics.

  The punch made him huff out a startled breath, and Meri, confident that she had his attention, turned and ran a few steps before stopping to see if he was chasing her rather than paying attention to the car.

  She definitely had his attention. He started to point one hand at her, the fingers curled down, and she realized suddenly that maybe those silver bracelets were the weapon. Then he changed his mind. His reddened eyes still streaming tears from the pepper spray, he broke into a gallop, coming after her.

  Meri cried out and began to run. She was hardly even thinking of getting him away from the car anymore; she just wanted to escape.

  3

  ___

  T AMIR CURSED SOFTLY from the pilot's seat. "They're not just scouting. It's a raid, and they're already on the surface."

  Lyr said nothing. It wasn't the sort of comment that required a response.

  They came in low over dark fields and scattered clusters of lights that marked villages and towns. Slender strings of light connected the bright clusters like a softly glowing spiderweb: those would be roads for land vehicles. Most of this planet's travel still went on by ground transport.

  Initial visuals were coming in on long-range sensors from the mothership overhead, and suddenly the main screen's view of the dark countryside was replaced with a scene of chaos in front of a roadside complex of buildings. The pirates were rounding up terrified humans. Some of them had been stunned, perhaps killed. One of the vehicles was on fire.

  This was the most public pirate raid they'd had to deal with. Previous attacks had taken place in remote, rural locations. The pirates were growing bolder now that they'd realized Earth humans, in a one-on-one fight, were largely defenseless against them, lacking personal shields and or combat training.