by Chris Fox
My anger carried me through my little tirade, but as my father’s expression hardened I lost a little steam. Skepticism and perceived disrespect warred across his face, and I prayed that common sense would win. My mom had told him this was real, and he trusted her implicitly, even now.
“I can let the Ariela thing go,” he managed through gritted teeth, “but only if you live. If the world really is coming apart, then you need to get clear. Find a ship and get on it. ASAP. You can’t afford to be saddled with a past-his-prime cripple.”
I started to laugh. It rolled up out of me in waves, a release for all the pent-up tension, of the constant near-death escapes. After all this, my father was just going to stay home and die.
“You think this is funny?” my dad growled, his knuckles whitening around the beer.
“A little, yeah,” I admitted. I almost took a step into the room before I remembered the sludge. “One of the most deadly shots in the sector just called himself useless. Dad, you are absolutely vital to the next part of my plan. I don’t think I can survive without you, so, to use one of your favorite phrases, we don’t have time for your pity party.”
Now it was my dad’s turn to laugh, which loosened something inside me. I hadn’t been positive I could reach him.
“Your mother always warned me that one day you’d throw that phrase back in my face.” He gave a lopsided grin, the same he’d delivered to my mother during the call. “Let’s hear this terrible plan of yours.”
“It’s pretty bad.” I shifted my weight, and wished I could lie down. Orbital re-entry had pushed me well past my limits, even with the armor’s help. “It starts with you hosing me off. Once you aren’t gagging any more we’re heading to the pawn shop to get Ariela.”
“And what,” my dad interrupted, “makes you think that Arcan will part with her? He called just to taunt me about having her.”
“Because I know where we can get a ship.” Now it was my turn to smile, though my dad couldn’t see my face under the armor. “We’re going to need Arcan to outfit us, and we’re going to need to pick up some muscle. Arcan will help with both, because he wants to survive the destruction of our planet and I can help him do that.”
“Who do you have in mind for muscle? Can’t let Arcan provide it all, or he’ll gun us down the moment our backs are turned.” My father’s tone was dubious. He’d never had any faith in my friends.
“Briff.” I raised a sludge-covered hand to forestall his protest. “I know you don’t think he’s worth much, but he’s a crack shot, and he can get between us and a whole lot of nasty things I’d rather not have hit me in the face. We’re going to need him to take the ship.”
“Okay,” my father allowed, tone still skeptical. “Let’s say Briff pulls his weight. What ship are you planning to hit? Every vessel on this world is about to get damned popular.”
That was the biggest failure point in my plan. I was gambling that the lurkers hadn’t moved the Remora. I figured they didn’t really have a reason to yet since word hadn’t gotten out about the dissolution of our world.
If I could get there quickly enough the ship was probably still there. It would take weeks to scavenge her, and probably longer to find a buyer who’d take a ship with a wiped registration. She’d be guarded, of course, but I couldn’t see them moving her.
“You let me worry about the ship,” I finally said. “Finish your beer, and get your stuff. We’re going to grab Briff first.”
My father gave a shrug, then dropped his beer bottle into the bin with the others. “You know what? I’ll go. Just to see how it plays out. Besides, if we somehow pull this off, your mother will have to live with the fact that I saved you.”
I didn’t point out that it was kind of the other way around. My dad wanted to have his last ride, and I didn’t mind giving him that so long as he rode onto a ship and into orbit before this planet came apart.
As if to punctuate the thought the entire area began to shake. Not the swaying we’d had before, but a violent tremor that shook everything.
“Armor, can you estimate how long until this area is affected by the gravitational disturbance?” I tried to remember the term the armor had used. Geological instability? Hopefully it was smart enough to figure out what I meant.
A new feature blinked onto the HUD. A timer, counting down in draconic. I did the calculations in my head. The dragonflights had used a 365-day calendar broken into twelve lunar cycles, each 30 days long. The last five days of each year was called calibration, and was considered a time of rebirth.
Draconic civilization counted everything in relation to this calibration, and I swiftly converted it to our current calendar.
“We’ve got about six hours before this area is affected,” I explained, as calmly as I could. “We need to get moving. Now.”
I headed for Briff’s without waiting for my dad, but was comforted when his hoverchair whirred along in my wake. Even with the constant quakes it didn’t take long to reach Briff’s. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure he’d be home yet, but if the quake had knocked out his Quantum then there was no reason for him not to come back to his flop.
His door was open, as usual, and I poked my head in. The entire building shook, and I knew it was only going to get worse.
“Hey, Briff, you back?” I scanned his flop, and found him sitting on his couch, his wings raised to stabilize him against the shaking. His holo had vibrated off the stand onto the warped floor, and cans were jumping about on his floor making a bunch of tinny chimes.
“What the depths is this, Jer?” Briff struggled to rise, and eventually found his footing. “Why isn’t it stopping?”
“This isn’t an earthquake,” I explained. “Grab your gear. We need to get out of here. Now.”
My father zoomed up into the doorway and delivered his trademark judgmental stare. “You seriously have no idea what’s going on? Have you not been following holo? It’s all over everything.”
“I was playing arena…” Briff gave an apologetic shrug. “So where are we going? And why is your dad with us?”
“The planet is coming apart.” I glanced over my shoulder. The shaking was getting worse, and people were emerging from their flops and looking around. Panic would be the next stage. “We need to get ahead of this. I know where we can get a ship, but we’re going to have to take it from some lurkers.”
“Oh.” Briff blinked at me with those unreadable slitted eyes. “Okay. Let’s go then.” He reached over and hefted his security guard breastplate, then affixed his pack to the back of it. “Do we have time to grab something to eat? I just got home and my fridge is empty.”
“Is he even serious?” my father snarled.
“Dad.” I put up a hand to forestall him. Mediating disputes between the two of them was going to be so much fun. “Briff, grab whatever food you have, because no, we don’t have time to stop.”
Briff’s tail drooped, and he licked his fangs nervously. “I, uh, just ran out of algae. I was going to go to the store around lunch time.”
“So you have no rations.” My dad zoomed out of the flop. “Come on, Jer. We don’t need this riffraff. I’d rather take my chances with Arcan’s mercs.”
“Dad!” I snapped, rounding on him. “This is my op. You want to come along, awesome. But I’m calling the shots. Briff comes. We need him. You’ve never seen him fight, and you’re just judging him by his appearance.”
“Dragons should not be plump.” My father stabbed a finger at Briff’s gut, which to be fair was perhaps a bit on the larger side. “When was the last time you even flew? Can you even fly?”
“This is getting us nowhere,” I growled, then turned back to Briff. “We’ll see if Arcan can supply rations. If not, the lurkers may have some. Either way we don’t have time to deal with it. In six hours this city is dust. Let’s move.”
12
I raised my arms, exposing the armor to the torrent of water spraying from the hose Briff held. The hatchling methodically removed the
yellow sludge coating my suit, and I couldn’t help but stare at the readout next to the paywater reservoir where the water was coming from. We were being charged both by the minute and by the liter. I had credits, thanks to Arcan, but it was still hard watching my account drain.
Instead, I focused on more interesting things, namely the armor’s HUD. The trident icon above the paper doll had lit when I’d poured the fire magic into the armor during my frantic post-orbital adventure. At the time I hadn’t noticed that a new icon had also appeared, this one an eye inside a triangle, greyed out just like the trident and crown had been.
The trident probably indicated some sort of weapons system, which I’d guess was connected to projecting energy from the suit’s limbs. I’d have to study it when I found something to shoot at. The eye though? That symbology was all over ancient dragonflight tech, though not in this archaic form.
It symbolized divination magic, the very magic I was trained to use. I didn’t yet know what the symbol would unlock, but I was damned excited to find out. Whatever it was might be tailored to my particular set of skills, and if ever there was a time I needed an edge it was now.
“So, Jerek,” Briff rumbled, waving the hose to drench the back of the suit’s legs. “I know we kind of glossed over this before, but you said the world’s ending. Right? Whole thing is gonna blow up?”
“Pretty much,” I affirmed, twisting the armor to provide a better target.
“Then why are we standing around hosing you off? I mean, shouldn’t we be running for our lives?” Briff finished his work, and replaced the hose in the receptacle as I stood there dripping.
He’d done a fine job and a cursory examination revealed no remaining sludge, but the bath had cost two hundred and nineteen credits. Ouch. Over 10% of my funds just to clean some armor.
My dad bobbed a bit closer on his hoverchair, and delivered a pitying look to Briff. “You want me to explain it, Jer?”
“No.” I knew my father would be an ass about it, and Briff was stressed enough. I needed him calm for what was to come. “Briff, we’re heading through the security checkpoint. They’ll never let us in if I’m covered in that goop, so we took a few minutes to fix that. Now we need to get moving. We’ve got a little over five hours to get this done. Try to look like you belong. Remember, you’re muscle. Act like it. Just like back at school, you’re the heavy bringing up the rear.”
“You got it, Jer.” Briff straightened, towering over me, especially if you counted the wings jutting over his shoulders.
He might not be intimidating for a dragon, but the base level was pretty terrifying from my perspective. Add in a spellcannon, or even a conventional railgun, and he’d be properly menacing.
I took point, which felt odd, but since this was my op, that was where I belonged. My dad’s hoverchair whirred behind me, and Briff brought up the rear. We didn’t talk as we walked, thankfully. Nervous chatter wasn’t a distraction I could really deal with right now.
As I retraced my steps to Arcan’s pawn shop, I considered my impending plan. Theoretically the ship had four defenders. Two I’d seen, and two more that the guard had yelled out to. Add in a hypothetical two new arrivals and we were looking at something like six defenders. I seriously doubted it was more.
We’d need to disable the defenders, and we’d have the advantage of surprise if we played it right. Unfortunately, even if the initial assault went well, we were still looking at a room by room clear of the ship.
That might have been fun back when we were using paint pellets at the academy, but this would be very real, and very lethal. I still remember the void bolt that woman had hit me with. My armor might block a shot or two, but it didn’t make me invincible.
We finally reached the gates leading through the buffer, which were clogged with people trying to get through. Most stood at a semicircle just outside the scanners, and for good reason.
They had no lawful business in the next sector, and the guns would cheerfully cut down anyone unauthorized who tried to enter. Blam, blam, blam…have a nice day, citizen.
Every now and then a maintenance worker would dart forward and slip through the turrets and drones, but most personnel were already on shift. That made it easy to pass through the crowd, who muttered darkly in our direction as we strode through their ranks.
“Yeah, that’s right,” my father boomed. “We’ve got commerce to be about. Get out of the way, scavs.” His grin had a note of cruelty to it, a bit of the resentment he’d built for his neighbors leaking through.
“Excuse me,” I said, stepping to the side to allow an old woman pushing a cart full of wilted mushrooms to pass. Most other people got out of my way, and I reached the edge of the crowd.
The precious minutes on the walk here had been useful for thinking, but now it was go time. I needed to convince Arcan, a hostile and shrewd negotiator, to make a deal based entirely on faith.
I didn’t even tense as I passed beneath the checkpoint’s watchful turrets, as for once I had more pressing concerns. My father followed on my heels, but when I glanced behind me I saw Briff frozen in place, his head swiveling from one turret to the next.
“I’m, ah, not usually allowed out unless I’m on shift.” The hatchling took a step forward, and the scanners focused on him. His voice had risen a half octave when he spoke next. “They’re going to let me through, right?”
The scanner winked green, and a visibly relieved Briff hurried through, his belly bouncing and tail swaying as he lumbered past the turrets. Ironically, he was far more likely to survive them than a human.
“This way.” I swiftly made my way around the corner to Arcan’s shop, but slowed when I saw it. The shop’s front had two large windows, like most shops, and they afforded an excellent view of the crowd within.
The most people I’d ever seen had been maybe a dozen. There might be fifty people now, all being waited on by the three men at the counter. Those waiting held everything from spellcannons to refrigeration units, all aiming to get a little capital.
“Guess word’s already gotten out,” my dad groused, zooming a bit closer to the door.
“Not yet,” I disagreed. “These are the smart people who are putting the pieces together. It’s going to get a lot worse.” I stepped in front of the pawn shop’s scanner and the door slid open, allowing me to join the back of the line. I pitched my next words low, though they were covered by the hum of conversation in the room. “If they make an official statement, everyone is going to stampede for the safer parts of the planet. We need to be quick, before word gets out.”
I shifted from foot to foot, but a grey-scaled hatchling with metal-tipped wings stood a few places ahead of me, effectively blocking my view. This was going to take hours, and when you were counting the survival of the planet in the double digits, every hour mattered.
“I ain’t good for much, but I can take care of this.” My father adopted a grim expression as his hoverchair whirred higher into the air. “I’m gonna have to eat a giant loaf of humble bread, so you kids had best appreciate this.”
At first I wasn’t sure what my dad meant. He’d drifted high enough that his head nearly bumped the track lights, making him visible to Arcan and his minions even with this large of a crowd.
“Well, if it isn’t Dag the Slayer,” Arcan’s voice boomed through the room, smothering nearly every conversation. “Everyone get a good look. We’ve got a bonafide arena champion here, folks. Three years running, if you can believe that. Course, you might also notice that he’s a bit shorter than he used to be. Looks like he’s missing a couple legs. Why don’t you tell us how you lost those, Dag?”
My father did something I didn’t believe him capable of. He took the hit for the team, and he did it with grace.
“Yeah, sure, Arcan. You want my dignity? You can have it, as long as you hear out my boy right after.” My dad gave a pained nod, the lines tightening around his eyes. He licked his lips, and seemed to force the words out. “Once upon a time I was a d
amned good arena captain. I can direct a squad. I’m a crack shot, one of the best in my day. I had the body. I had the reflexes. I had the magic.”
Arcan gave an irritated snort, but didn’t interrupt.
“Then I got arrogant,” my father continued, his gaze now locked with Arcan’s. “I ain’t gettin’ any younger, and I knew I couldn’t run arena forever. I thought I could transition to a mercenary commander. Figured running five squads couldn’t be that much harder than running one, so I recruited Arcan here and three other captains. Our very first job was down near New Cairo. Corporate dispute. They needed us to dip in, wipe out some research, and then get out. I chartered a dropship and everything. We infiltrated using orbital pods, like a damned holo.”
“You told us it would be simple,” Arcan snarled, his eyes narrowed. The hatchling in front of me had moved, and I saw the broker’s fist tighten around Ariela’s grip where she was belted around his hip. “Good money, you said. Better because we were only splitting it twenty-five ways, instead of the hundred and twenty-five the job called for. But you were a crap leader, Dag. You gave us no idea what we were walking into.”
“You’re right.” My dad’s spine went ramrod straight atop his hoverchair, his posture every inch the doomed soldier facing the firing squad. “During the evac I stepped on a swarmer mine, and the nanites ate their way up to my thighs before they ran out of steam. After I went down I had no second designated, and we broke into five independent squads. Less than half of us made it out, and that was my fault.”
“At least you’re willing to own up to it. Only took you eleven years.” Arcan slowly shook his head, then moved to the opening in the bar. “Your kid’s got business, old man? Follow me. And expect me to apply an asshole surcharge to whatever you have in mind.”
13
My dad’s hoverchair whirred through the crowd, which reacted much differently than I’d expected. It started slowly, at first, but quickly rippled through to the people at the edges.