by Ramy Vance
“I’m asking the same thing. You guys okay? You look a little distracted.”
Alex glanced over her shoulder at the rest of the riders prepping their dragons and getting ready to leave. “I think we’re just nervous,” she said, regretting lying to him. Maybe she could tell him the truth. Maybe it would be helpful to have someone on their side.
Their side? Are you serious, Alex? It isn’t them against us. We’re all trying to do the same thing—get rid of the Dark One.
Yeah, but some of us are fighting, and others who have the power to destroy entire armies are sitting up in their ivory castles, letting us take all the risks.
Alex knew that wasn’t fair. Myrddin was practically running the whole war effort. Still, thinking about it stung.
All of those worries and fears could be set aside for the moment. Alex pushed them down with everything else she’d been forcing out of her head for the last few months. She knew it was all going to come up at some point—it didn’t take a degree in psychology to figure that out—but it wouldn’t be today. Chine, you ready to do this?
The dragon stood up as smoke rose from his nostrils. Let’s hurry up and take care of this, he growled in Alex’s head. I want to get out of this thing as soon as possible. Tubes in your stomach? Humans have to figure out less barbaric ways to accomplish their goals.
Chine was uncomfortable, and his lizard-like face showed his pain. We won’t drag this out, big guy, Alex said as she jumped onto his back.
Alex attached her anchor and felt her boots connect with the dragon’s back. The connection was stronger than usual. On Middang3ard, Alex could walk around on Chine if she wanted to. That wasn’t going to happen this time. She could tell her feet weren’t going anywhere.
Jollies came through on Alex’s comm. “You know, we’re behind you, right?” she asked. “Everything we were saying, it isn’t about you. None of it. You’re a rider like us.”
“Yeah, I know,” Alex replied. “I appreciate you telling me, though.”
“Brath wanted to say something, but he couldn’t bring himself to. I mean, not to you. He’s been muttering about it to Gill since we’ve started suiting up.”
“What about Jim?”
Jollies didn’t answer immediately. “Uh, he hasn’t really said anything.”
“Are you just telling me that?”
Alex could hear the hurt in Jollies’ voice. “Of course not! I just wasn’t sure what would have been better—if he had said something or he hadn’t. Either way, he hasn’t said anything.”
Alex looked at the open sky above her. “It’s probably better that way. We shouldn’t have any infighting going on. Thanks for being a bigger person than Brath.”
“Not a problem.”
The gnome’s surly voice growled through the comm, “You know, you never disconnected from me, Jollies.”
The pixie squeaked, “Oh, crap! Uh, gotta go, Alex!”
Despite her stress and unease, Alex couldn’t keep herself from chuckling as she prepared for takeoff. Even if everything was crazy around her, she at least had her team. That was the important thing. Nothing was going to break Boundless up. “All right, everyone,” she shouted. “Get ready for takeoff!”
Alex pivoted her foot slightly and then pulled up hard on her dragon anchor, activating the thrusters on Chine’s back.
She instantly saw what the technicians had meant by her needing to take a lot more control of the dragon. There was noticeable resistance when she pulled her anchor back. Turning would be difficult.
But the thrusters worked fast. Chine was already rising in a fashion not much different than Jim’s mech, which was also starting to ascend. The rest of the riders were lifting off as well. Alex could hear them muttering over the open channel they usually kept open once everyone was airborne. “Oh, I don’t like this!” Gill said.
On the other hand, Brath was cackling. “Are you serious? Furi loves this.” He laughed. “Do you see how big these thrusters are? We could really haul ass if we wanted to. Plus, this guy is overjoyed that he practically gets to sit this one out. Just a big ol’ boat, right?”
Alex tuned out the rest of the riders. Not because she wasn’t interested or didn’t want to joke, but she really wanted to get a handle on what this ride was going to be like. She’d already noticed an increased amount of tension, and Brath had mentioned how strong the thrusters were.
There was only one way to figure that out.
Alex rotated her hand, instinctively changing the direction of the thrusters and punched forward. They launched at full throttle, rocketing into the sky with a force unmatched by anything humanity had sent to the stars to date.
She looked over her shoulder and watched the base disappear in a matter of seconds. “Holy crap!” she shouted as she slowed down, waiting for Boundless to catch up with her. She hadn’t been expecting to move that fast. “This thing is like a hyperdrive!” She laughed.
The riders had nearly caught up. Alex couldn’t help but wonder what Jollies’ and Amber’s speed was like. They were the faster riders by a long shot.
“Not quite hyperdrive,” a voice said.
Alex looked around and saw that Vardis had joined them. He wasn’t using a ship, though. He was merely flying through the sky, a bright yellow aura around him. As if reading Alex’s mind, which he probably was, he said, “Your atmosphere is much thinner than I’m accustomed to. I can easily keep pace with you and your dragons for our trip to the moon.”
Just how strong is this guy in our dimension? Alex thought, becoming increasingly aware that Vardis might be able to read all of her thoughts. It made her very uncomfortable.
Chine’s voice came through Alex’s head. Don’t worry about Vardis. He might be a powerful telepath, but he’s nothing compared to me. As long as I’m conscious and we’re this close, he won’t hear anything. Nothing like what happened at dinner could occur right now.
Alex heaved a sigh of relief. I’m glad to hear that.
This was the fun part—breaking through the atmosphere. Alex knew how powerful the thrusters were, but she didn’t see the point in pushing them to their limit again. Instead, she started a steady ascent, paying close attention to how each movement between her and Chine felt, while also allowing herself to enjoy the new sensation of flight.
Having this much control was different. It felt more like what she’d experienced in VR. Very familiar, but not as good as the real thing. Still, she was glad it wasn’t completely foreign. She could still enjoy the experience.
And what an experience. It only took one look over her shoulder at the Earth disappearing behind her to make her heart swell. Everything she’d known in her earlier life had become small.
As the air started to thin, Alex felt the dragon anchor start to heat up. That must have been the oxidation of draconic fluid to oxygen. Thank God for magic tech, Alex thought. Gonna have to shoot Abby an email about this one.
The stars got much larger. One moment, Alex was very aware she was still in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the next, they weren’t. She felt the last bit of gravity relinquish them, and there was a moment when she felt her body rising as if she’d float off of Chine. Then the anchor kicked in, and she settled down on his back again.
What a sight it was—an infinity of blackness peppered with lights that twinkled and invited. It was beyond anything Alex could ever have imagined. It must have been the same for the rest of the riders and dragons because they were all silent.
“This is so beautiful,” Jollies finally said. “Incredible.”
Alex nodded before she realized she was still capable of talking. “Yeah. I can’t wait to see the moon,” she finally said. “Let’s go, Boundless.”
Chapter Eight
Team Boundless raced toward the dark side of the moon. They were all silent, thoroughly engrossed by the foreign beauty of space. For all their lives, they had stared at the sky at night. Alex didn’t think any of them had ever dreamed they’d be up there.
&n
bsp; Crossing into different realms had been exciting, but there was no comparison. The realms were mirrors of one another. Nothing was very different or alien. Space was something else entirely.
Alex activated her HUD and started to record everything she could see. Her parents would lose their minds over this. It would be a nice memory to look back on after the Dark One was taken care of. “Hey, remember that time I went to outer space?”
The moon was getting closer. It was time to focus on the mission at hand. “Vardis, where are we going?” she asked. “Did you send us specific coordinates?”
Vardis came up on Alex’s side and shook his head. “No, it was dangerous to send them. If the Dark One had any spies in your base, I risked giving up the location. But I’ll lead you there. Just follow me.”
Vardis took point as Boundless began to swoop around the moon. The sheer size of it was humbling, and Alex couldn’t help but stare at it in awe as they circled it.
As they went around the moon, Alex was relieved to see that “far side” was much more accurate than “dark side.” She and her father had gotten into multiple arguments about what existed there, unseen by humanity.
Her father, being into conspiracy theories, believed there were alien bases on the part of the moon that was cloaked in darkness. Alex had tried to explain multiple times that the far side of the moon wasn’t dark. It just couldn’t be seen.
They had agreed to disagree. Alex was glad to see they were both right. That side of the moon definitely wasn’t dark, and if there wasn’t an alien base, there was a weapon hidden by an interdimensional being. That was pretty close.
Vardis led the team as they started to descend to the moon surface. Alex felt a little bit of gravity kicking in. That meant movement would be even more different than when they were flying in the void or in Earth’s gravity. It was something she was going to have to take into account.
They landed, and Alex dismounted. Her suit compensated for the low gravity on the moon and weighed her down. She’d never seen videos of the moon landing, but her father had explained to her how ridiculous everyone had looked hopping around. Thank God that wasn’t something she needed to stress about.
Vardis pointed at a massive crater Alex had seen when they had neared the surface. “There,” he said. “That’s where we’ll find it.”
Alex followed him, Chine right behind her with the rest of the dragonriders. “Why didn’t we just land at the crater?”
“I wanted to give myself enough space to be able to deactivate the defense system. It can’t be done from the above, only on the surface. An extra precaution.”
They got closer to the crater, and finally, Vardis held up his hand and stopped. A datapad fizzled—that was the only word that worked—into existence in his hand. It was a different type of physical disruption than when Myrddin conjured something into existence. Whatever Vardis did looked like a small hole had been torn in his palm, and something had bubbled out like the fizz of opening a soda.
Vardis swiped through a couple of options and then looked at the crater. “That should have done it.”
Gill came up behind Alex. “Which means that we are safe now?” he asked pointedly.
Vardis didn’t seem to note or mind the tone of Gill’s voice because he answered cheerfully enough, “Yes, we should all be safe now.”
“What do you mean ‘we?’”
“The defense system is set to attack, regardless of who enters. I will be in just as much danger as you if the system isn’t deactivated.”
Gill exchanged glances with Alex. Maybe they’d been wrong about Vardis. Either way, Alex was getting sick of the back and forth. If she wanted to deal with a lack of trust, she would have been a spy or something like that. All she wanted to do was know who the bad guys were and take care of them. Keep things simple. “Well, what are we waiting for?” she said.
She climbed back on top of Chine and Vardis led them to the crater, which was much larger than it had looked from space. It was easily the size of a small city block, jagged chunks of rock jutting into the sky, with ditches and scars the length of a football field. Something had torn into the moon’s surface. Alex hoped she never found out what it was.
As Chine stepped into the crater, the air around them shimmered. Alex almost didn’t notice it, and she was certain that if she’d had regular eyes, she wouldn’t have seen it. “Did any of you guys pick up on that?” she asked through the comm, glad Vardis wasn’t on the channel.
Most of the riders said no, but Gill agreed that he had noticed something. It had been slight, and he’d thought his eyes were playing a trick on him, but if Alex thought she had seen something too, they had.
Vardis had stopped walking and was staring at the sky. “Oh no,” he whispered.
Alex followed Vardis’ gaze. The shimmer she’d seen when crossing into the crater was spreading throughout the sky in the shape of a dome, stretching to the other side. “That doesn’t sound like a good ‘Oh no,’” Alex shouted at him.
The alien slowly turned to face Alex, his jaw slack, his eyes wide with fear. “The security system,” Vardis gasped. “It’s been tampered with. It’s still functional.”
Before Alex could ask what that meant for them, the sky lit up as if someone had set off fireworks. She could see rocks streaking across the sky, and they were coming straight for them. “Scatter!” she shouted.
Boundless went in five directions, each of them moving slower than they would have if their dragons had control. But it was enough, and they separated in time to avoid the boulders as they collided with the surface of the moon, throwing up dust and debris everywhere so that there was a veil obstructing everything.
A deep hum was coming from where the rocks had landed. There was something in the blast zone. “What the hell kind of defenses do you have!” Jim shouted at Vardis.
The alien was backing away, his eyes wide with terror. “Something horrible.”
As the dust settled, Alex narrowed her eyes, focusing to cut through the dust. She could see the rocks. There were three of them, and they were glowing a dull green, their surfaces pulsating as if they were egg sacs.
Then one of the boulders cracked, and something dark and wet slithered onto the ground. It looked almost like a snake, except it had hands and its tail was a stinger. The creature’s head was a misshapen mass of tendrils that gave the illusion they were stacked on top of each other, one over the other in a mess.
The rest of the rocks cracked as well, the same sort of creature slithering from the green afterbirth as the first began to swell, its soft skin growing harder until, still growing faster than naturally possible, its tendrils and its skin developed a rock-like look as its arms stretched out, claws ripping from its fingertips.
Boundless regrouped around Alex and Vardis, who was still in the grip of terror. “Vardis, what in the nine realms are those?” Brath shouted.
“Elder kin,” Vardis muttered. “Experiments of the gods from my realm. They… We must leave now. Otherwise, we are doomed.”
Alex couldn’t believe what was happening. “What are you talking about, ‘leave?’ We came here for the weapon!”
“If we leave before they notice us, they’ll be contained to the sphere. The weapon will be lost, but at least no one else will be able to retrieve it.”
Alex didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t sure if Vardis was right about anyone else being able to get the weapon.
And if the Dark One could get his hands on it, there was a chance he could use it against them. No, it was too risky. “Boundless, are you with me?” she shouted.
The team answered yes without hesitation.
“Good. We’re going for that weapon. If it means cutting those things down, so be it.”
Vardis stepped in front of Alex, panicked, waving his hands. “No, you don’t understand! These things are the stuff of gods! They’ll rip you apart!”
Alex had Chine gently push Vardis out of the way. “Our mission is to get the weapon.�
� Then she leaned forward, sending the dragon racing at the first creature as it turned its tendrilled head toward Boundless.
It rose into the sky, stretching out its long, craggy body. The thing moved as if it had no concept of gravity or perhaps even movement, contorting in bizarre ways as the rest of the monsters floated into the air.
For a second, Alex had the naïve idea that they wouldn’t attack. However, once the kin stretched out its hand, Alex felt stupid for entertaining the thought.
It was hard to tell what it was doing at first. Its vaguely humanoid hands made some sort of gesture, then a beam of green light shot out at Alex.
Alex leaned hard to the right, yanking on her anchor, barely managing to pull Chine out of the way. She hadn’t been expecting such a delay. On Middang3ard, that attack would have been nothing. She was really going to have to pay attention to what was going on.
Before she could formulate her next move, the creature was before her, its tendrils swirling as it looked into Alex’s eyes.
Her terror was immediate. It was a fear Alex had only experienced one other time, in the depths of the meteor. It was enough to suck the warmth out of her body. But it hadn’t broken her the last time. It wasn’t going to break her now. “Two to a kin,” Alex growled into her comm. “Vardis, you’re with me.”
Alex pulled her scythe from her anchor. She brought it down on the monster, whose body shifted out of reality for a second. When it phased back in, its rocky body wrapped around Chine, dragging him to the ground. Alex disengaged the gravity on her boots, jumped to the kin’s head, and slashed at it.
The blade of her scythe hit the creature and it pulled back, releasing the dragon. It stared at Alex for a few seconds as if surprised that anything would dare to attack it. Then Alex felt the terror again. This time, she realized she wasn’t afraid; the terror was radiating from it.
Jim and Jollies had linked up. Jollies was flying around the kin’s body, trying to shock it with Amber’s electrical jolts, but its skin seemed to be made of stone. There was no effect. Jim was sending flames at it but to no effect.